The Sensible Courtship

by Megan Daniel

  another pang of guilt. Then came an even stronger pang of anger. Not for the first time, or even the hundredth, did she wish she were a man, with all a man’s freedom of action and independence. She would not then be in this pickle.

  But Francesca was a realist. As she was a woman, and a very pretty and wealthy one in the bargain, she must use the weapons she had to fight for the right to be herself. And being married to Caspar Maltby could be a very powerful weapon in that ongoing battle.

  Francesca was not the only person in the room who was set to serious thinking by this discussion of marriage. Priscilla was made miserable by it. She feared that she would never marry, almost as much as she feared that she would. She could not bear the thought of spending the rest of her life under the thumb of her Mama. But neither did she see any escape for herself in being married. There was not a trace of deceit in Pris’s soul, and she knew very well that she had no feminine wiles at all. She was so timid and so used to bending to authority, so afraid of offending and so loath to express even the smallest desire of her own, that she could not imagine herself being able to stand up to a husband any better than she had ever been able to stand up to her mother.

  She had not given the matter deep thought in the past, being convinced as she was that no man would ever wish to marry her. But now that Lord Devlin was making such alarming overtures, the idea of being a wife—and more particularly wife to such a man—struck her most forcibly and set her to trembling.

  “Oh, yes,” Mrs. Pennington was saying, breaking into her daughter’s disturbing thoughts. “I believe there lives not the man who cannot be brought round a clever woman’s thumb. Even so strong a gentleman as our interesting Lord Devlin.” The significance of the remark was not lost on Priscilla. She had been stitching absently and ineptly on a ragged piece of embroidery and gave a little cry of pain as she stabbed her needle into her finger.

  Roxanna, though she could not but agree with Mrs. Pennington’s statement, disliked hearing it in connection with the gentleman she fully intended wrapping around her own thumb. Still, she could hardly bother to worry herself over the Pennington chit. That was rather like a snake worrying about a worm that lay in its path. With a delicate yawn, she turned her eyes, if not her attention, back to her book.

  Francesca also reacted rather strongly to the mention of Lord Devlin. Recalling her advice to that gentleman on the previous evening—and she blushed to recall any of that scene in her bedchamber—she thought it prudent to keep him as far from Priscilla’s thoughts as possible. And that could only mean getting her away from her mother.

  “It seems to have stopped raining,” she commented as though without purpose. Casually laying aside the fashion magazine she had been languidly perusing, she rose and gave a delicate stretch. “Would you care to go for a stroll in the shrubbery with me, Priscilla? I cannot bear to be cooped up inside a moment longer.”

  The younger girl shot her a grateful look. “Oh, yes. Yes, I should like that,” she said quickly. “I will just get my shawl,” she added, and ran from the room before her mother could stop her or find some magical way of getting Lord Devlin to accompany them.

  Once the two girls had gained the relative privacy of the shrubbery, Priscilla began to relax visibly, no longer looking back over her shoulder constantly like a hunted animal to see if they had been followed. They walked some little while in silence except for the soft crunch of their feet on the damp gravel. The sun had managed to wriggle through the grey clouds and glistened on the droplets still clinging to the hedges. A spider’s web still wet with the rain shone like silver lace in the sun, and they stopped to examine it.

  At length they began to chat, talking of the most mundane of matters, until Priscilla became almost comfortable. Francesca wanted to learn something about the girl if she could, as well as give her a much-needed boost in self-confidence.

  “Priscilla,” she finally said in a serious tone, “may I ask your advice about something?”

  This took the younger girl by surprise. “Advice, my lady? From me?”

  “Yes. You perhaps heard me mention to Lady Brae- thon that I have been thinking the time has come to look around me for a husband. But you know, I rather think that our world has grown so sophisticated that we have forgotten what is important in a mate, what has real value, you know. But you are so unspoiled still. I very much admire that in you.”

  Priscilla blushed to the roots of her hair. “You are too kind, my lady,” she whispered. “But no one could admire such clumsiness, such total lack of polish.”

  “You are wrong, you know,” said Francesca. “There are those who admire you very much indeed. You have not allowed your values to become distorted like so much of the ton. I think perhaps you can see people more clearly than many of us can. I would greatly appreciate your opinion....”

  “I could not presume, my lady—” she began.

  “Please,” replied Francesca. “Tell me. What do you admire in a gentleman? What would you look for in a prospective husband?”

  The girl looked up with intent eyes, reading her companion’s face. She saw no insincerity there. She looked away again, apparently giving the question some thought She did not think to mention love as a requirement of marriage, as she had long ago given up the thought that anyone would ever love her. What else, then, was important? Finally she spoke. “Kindness,” she said simply. “He must be kind.”

  There seemed to be little to add to such a simple truth. The two girls walked along in silence, each lost in her own thoughts, until a chill breeze sprang up to drive them back into the house.

  The gentlemen, though perhaps a bit restive from the grey weather that kept them indoors, were managing to amuse themselves tolerably well. They had most of them been at school together. Consequently they were used to the teasing and jests of each other and found themselves in comfortable company. Even Devlin, once the novelty of his unexpected reappearance had worn off, was one of a congenial group.

  Casper, though seldom in town and therefore not a regular crony of the group, knew them all quite well and was generally liked by them all. He had elected not to join in the billiard game that was now going forward, and sat instead with his attention turned to a botanical journal he had discovered in the library.

  “You know, Maltby,” said the fastidious Dudley Dalton, who was seated nearby awaiting his turn at the table. “If you intend being a viscount, you really oughtn’t to wear brown boots with a black coat.” Casper looked down at his brown Hessians, well made but worn and comfortable. When he looked up again, there was a vaguely puzzled look on his face.

  Graham Symington completed his shot with a crack of the balls, then looked up from his stick. “What you need is a good valet, old man.”

  “Or a good wife,” added Devlin in an offhand manner.

  “Yes, I suppose I do,” said Casper with a sigh.

  Surprise registered on Devlin’s face along with puzzlement as to whether the man referred to the valet or the wife. This might be promising. “Yes, nothing like a wife, I’ve heard, to make a man comfortable,” he said, turning back to his newspaper with an elaborately casual air. “May even come to it myself before long. Of course, not just any woman would do, would she?”

  “I suppose not,” said Casper. “Not if she were to become a baroness.” Recalling his own prospects, he added, “Or a viscountess.” He had never much relished the idea of coming into the title. He was not really ton material, as he well knew. “How does one go about finding her, though?” he asked the room in general

  “Only one way,” said Sir Algernon, leaving them in suspense as to the answer to this great mystery while he lined up his shot. The balls cracked again, and the point was scored. Algy looked up in satisfaction. “Got to go up to London for the Season. Do the pretty, y’know. Almack’s, the Opera. All that. A bore, but there it is. It’s what they expect That’s the Marriage Mart”

  At the image conjured up by these innocent words, Lord Devlin and Mr. Maltby e
xperienced quite similar feelings of horror, if for differing reasons. Devlin saw himself being pursued by the Widow and others of her ilk, or sought out by an endless string of schoolroom misses with fluttering eyelashes and matchmaking manias with matrimonial gleams in their eyes.

  Casper tried to imagine himself in evening clothes and uncomfortable shoes night after night while his prizewinning tulips bloomed at home without him. Unthinkable!

  “Good Lord!” muttered Devlin.

  “Shouldn’t like that,” muttered Caspar.

  At that moment, their individual resolves to marry before the spring took on even greater significance. The pair of them sank back into thought, even Caspar’s botanical journal forgotten in his lap.

  Thus it was that when Caspar appeared before Francesca for the promised tour of the rose garden, the question of marriage—his marriage—was more than ever in the forefront of his mind. And here was a very eligible and desirable young lady hanging lightly on to his arm and smiling up at him and making him feel ever so bright.

  She looked somehow different today, he noted. Younger and softer. More like she might need a man to lean on. They strolled casually through the nearly denuded garden, with Caspar examining every cut-back

  bush and thorn variation and explaining them all in excruciating detail. Francesca thought her jaw would crack with smiling, and her eyes ached from so much widening in maidenly appreciation of his superior knowledge.

  Soon they had covered the entire rose garden and headed for the hothouses. Francesca sighed with relief. Here at least there were some actual living flowers to exclaim over and admire, to smell and to wonder at. Hundred-leaved cabbage roses from Holland, chestnut roses from India, delicate damask and tea roses, and the sweetbriers that made the air smell of fresh green apples grew here in abundance.

  Francesca had asked Sarah’s permission to gather a basket full for the drawing rooms. Catching sight of her reflection in the glass wall, she could not forbear smiling at the picture she presented. With a pair of shears in her hand and a basket of flowers over her arm, she looked the veriest country maid, milk-fed and fresh-scrubbed. Reluctantly she had to admit that Devlin had given her good advice. This was much the better tack.

  Dimpling up at her companion, she chose a small white Chinese rose from her basket. With a pin from her pocket—she was nothing if not prepared—she attached the flower to the collar of his coat.

  Caspar seemed much struck by her action, looked around for the finest specimen within reach, a large perfect doubleheaded Persian rose of a deep amber yellow nearly the shade of her eyes, and with something of a flourish—especially for Caspar Maltby—presented it to her.

  She gave a gurgle of pleasure and a flutter of her eyelashes. After breathing in the heady scent of the bloom, she rose on tiptoe to give her swain a feathery kiss on the cheek. He blushed as red as the reddest rose in her basket.

  She knew she had scored an important point in the game. She was also shrewd enough to know when to stop. After one wide-eyed look at him, she turned toward the house and ran off, the still-blushing Caspar trailing behind her.

  Another pang of guilt went through Francesca as she ran up the stairs to her room. She detested flirtation in others, and here she was wallowing in it. Really, she should have been an actress on the stage! And Caspar was really such a very nice young man, and not at all an equal foe. It was too unfair of her.

  But she pushed the uncomfortable thought aside. She would make Caspar a good enough wife. She would give him superlative children and a very comfortable home. What more could any husband expect, or even want, from a wife?

  She did just chance to wonder how long she could keep up this elaborate charade that seemed to be working so well. Could she ever just relax and be comfortable with the man who was to be her husband? As she was comfortable with Devlin? She pushed that thought from her mind even before it had a chance to become completely formed.

  The evening passed away uneventfully over cards and conversation, with a sprinkling of music thrown in to lighten the mix. Devlin did speak to Priscilla, but only for a short while and only on the most innocuous of subjects, as instructed. The anxiety he could still read behind her eyes said quite clearly that Francesca had heen right. He must back off.

  Roxanna Gordon made a careful observation of both Francesca and Devlin, smiling slyly now and then and hugging a very comforting secret to her bosom.

  The fact of the next morning’s hunt sent the company early to their beds, to sleep, to scheme, or to fret, as their various personalities and predicaments dictated.

  12

  There were few sluggards in the house next morning. A day off from hunting had whetted the riders’ appetites for a good chase. The teakettles whistled early in the kitchens. Abigails and valets began laying out habits and breeches, and chambermaids and footmen trudged up and down staircases with great copper pitchers of steaming water. Down in the kennels the dogs were yapping in expectation; in the stables horses frisked in anticipation of a good hard run.

  The breakfast room offered up without demur its bounty of sirloin and ham in thick slices, toast and muffins oozing butter, and tea and coffee filling the air with their fragrant steam. No one dabbled there, however, and soon ladies in merino and velvet and gentlemen in Melton and leather spilled down the wide stone steps of the porch toward their waiting mounts.

  Once again, Lord Devlin was the center of everyone’s attention. His strange American horses had arrived.

  “Say, Dev,” exclaimed Sir Algernon, looking over a sleek but small and tightly muscled black stallion. “You’ll not hunt that runt, will you? Scarce looks up to your weight.”

  “Oh, Arapaho is up to it, Algy. He’s pulled me through more than one pretty tight comer before this.”

  “He’s not even fifteen hands,” said Dudley Dalton in derision. “Can’t expect a slug like that to keep up with a field of pure bloods.”

  “Keep up!” exclaimed Devlin, laughing. “Lead is more like.”

  “A hundred guineas says I don’t believe it,” said Lord Jersey flatly. He eyed the horse critically, a trace of a smirk on his face. The horse didn’t much seem to like his lordship’s looks either. He offered the gentleman a kick that sat the Earl right on his noble backside.

  A general round of laughter at Lord Jersey’s expense was punctuated by further offers of wagers against the frisky black horse’s speed and staying power. Devlin accepted them one and all with an amused grin.

  As the others drifted off to their own mounts, Devlin turned to discover Lady Francesca running a practiced hand lightly and knowledgeably over the stallion’s powerful withers. “You stand to make quite a sum today, Devlin. He’ll stick,” she said with perfect confidence.

  “Yes, he will,” Devlin replied, somehow pleased at her perceptiveness. “But I am surprised that you should see it Jersey couldn’t, and he is said to be one of the finest judges of horseflesh in all England.”

  “Lord Jersey doesn’t want to see it An American horse outrunning an English one? God forbid!”

  “Oh, dear, I hope I am not to be branded a traitor.”

  “You needn’t worry. Your standing with this group is so high you’re in no danger.”

  “How fortunate,” he answered wryly. He received a grin from her in return.

  “But what of your other horses, Devlin? Did you not bring several with you? If they are all like this handsome little fellow, I must see them.”

  “I have brought three. The gelding is in need of a day off, but I have promised the mare to Miss Pennington today.” A murmur arose from the crowd at that moment, drawing their attention. Issac, Devlin’s servant-of-all- work, was leading out another horse. “Ah, here she is,” said Devlin. Francesca looked at the horse, and her eyes grew wide.

  The mare was small, like the stallion, and compactly built. But the thing that was causing such a stir among the group was her unusual and altogether beautiful coloring. She was as golden as a newly minted guinea and sho
ne just as brightly. Her mane and tail were the pale yellow-white of sun-bleached straw. With her pretty head held high, she glowed in the morning sunlight.

  The horse pranced gaily as the huge black servant led her out, and she tossed her silken mane as if well aware that she was the cynosure of every eye.

  “I say!” exclaimed one amazed voice, and “Good God!” came another. Francesca smiled her appreciation of the sight and turned to Devlin.

  “Priscilla is a lucky girl,” she said.

  He grinned back. “So glad you think so.”

  Questions came flying at Devlin from several directions. “She is called a palomino in America,” he answered. “It is a not uncommon coloring among mustangs. Very highly prized by the Indians.” He took the horse’s rein and led her toward where Priscilla waited cowering at the edge of the group. She was trembling inside her habit and wishing she could sink down and hide behind the mounting block.

  “Miss Pennington,” said Devlin, “may I present Mom- ing-Sun-on-the-Water?” He grinned. “Rather a mouthful, I know. She was named by the Indian from whom I bought her, you see. But if you just call her Sunrise she will understand.”

  “She . . . she is very pretty,” Priscilla managed to blurt out.

  “Yes. She is my beauty.” He patted the warm nose that nudged his shoulder, and smiled warmly at Priscilla. “Until now, she was quite my favorite lady.” She could scarce pretend to misunderstand either his words or his look. “I shall like to see you on her,” he concluded, then reached out a hand to her. Priscilla reluctantly allowed