“They said … they said you had died,” Marianne murmured, and the tears threatened to fall again. Straightening her back, she swallowed and smiled instead. “But then your letter came, and the money … I thought at first it was a cruel joke, or perhaps one of our neighbors … You must know, Richard, that our neighbors have been more than kind; I would never, never take charity. But then, I saw it was in your own hand, and your own signature, and I knew it must be you, and that you would come home again.” She stood up and turned to the window. Richard could see her tears falling, reflected in the glass.
He came to her and put a comforting arm around her shoulders—thin shoulders, he noted. He mentally cursed his father and himself again. Thoughtless! Well, he would make it up to her and gladly forfeit his soul.
“There now, Marianne, sweeting. I am home, and you are not alone any longer. I will take care of you.”
She turned and smiled up at him. “Oh, I would not blame you if you think I am a silly, useless thing! I have become quite a watering-pot, have I not? But I assure you, I have made myself quite useful! You need not fear I will hang on your sleeve.”
“You may hang on my sleeve as much as you please.”
“No, no! I would detest that. I know we are … are in the basket, you see,” she said, looking at him with dark, grave eyes. She sat down again on the sofa.
“And where did you hear that vulgar phrase, dear sister?” Richard’s smile was wry.
“From the stable boy, of course!” Marianne grinned. She bit her lip, her expression sobering, and cast an uncertain look at him. “I hope you do not mind it, but I have had to sell off Papa’s horses, you see, although I did keep Jupiter for my own transportation. I didn’t want to be beholden to so many …”
“No, of course not. It is well that you did. I was going to do so myself when I returned, so it is just as well.” He had not sold Satan, himself; it cost little to travel by horseback, especially if he slept in haylofts from time to time.
Marianne smiled another uncertain smile at him, then looked down at her hands, fiddling with his handkerchief in her lap.
“But you are not pleased.”
“It is not fit that you should have anything to do with selling horses, my dear.”
“Should I have sold off our paintings instead?” she asked, puzzled. “Flour and tea, I have found, cost quite a bit more than I would have thought, you see.”
Richard burst out laughing. “No, not that, either. But I suppose I cannot blame you if you are not up to snuff. It is not as if you have had any opportunity to gain some town bronze, after all.”
“Oh, pooh! That is nothing! I have heard it is quite noisy and dirty in London!”
“You would not say that if you had had a chance at a Season, Marianne.”
His sister put a comforting hand on his arm.
“You mustn’t think I would miss that sort of thing, truly! Why, I have heard that London dandies will rudely ogle a lady with their quizzing glasses, just like horrid Mr. Candle in town! I think I should feel quite uncomfortable with dozens of Mr. Candles staring at me, to be sure.”
Richard gazed at Marianne and saw that despite his teasing that she had grown up into a big girl—she had indeed grown into a singularly lovely young lady. She was tall, achingly thin, and her clothes hung ill upon her. But her dark gray eyes were large in her sculptured face, and her nose had escaped his own aquiline shape into something quite straight and elegant, while her lips were delicately curved. Her hair, light brown and thickly curling, formed a halo about her head. It was short, he noted, and he last remembered it as long.
She saw his gaze rest upon her hair, and her hand flew to her head in a guilty gesture. She smiled at him, but he could tell it was strained, and her eyes avoided him.
“Oh, I see you have noticed my new crop. I saw it in Ackermann’s Repository only the other day, and thought I should look quite à la mode. So I had Susan cut it—she is quite good at dressing hair, you know—and I like it so much better than when it was long.”
“You sold it, didn’t you?”
“No, I—”
“Don’t lie to me, Marianne. I know you have had a horrible time of it. I can tell. We are … poor,” he made himself say, though his tongue almost stumbled over the words.
“If you must know, yes. I did sell it. I thought you would be pleased.”
“Pleased! That my sister was in such straits that she had to sell her hair? Good God, Marianne, what sort of bas—what sort of man do you think I am to be pleased that you had to sell your hair to live?”
“Don’t! Just don’t, Richard! It was not for food, but for a little thing that I wanted to buy,” she snapped at him. She looked at him and sighed. “I thought you would have been proud of my economy, Richard. Oh, don’t let’s argue! You are just come home and should receive a better welcome than this.”
Richard gazed at Marianne’s distressed face and relented. Time enough to talk of finances, and how to go on. Indeed, he would much rather not think of it—or the future. He smiled at her.
“You are quite right. We should not argue. And I do think you have done admirably in my absence. As for welcomes, I suppose if dampness is any measure, I have been welcomed quite well.” That brought a merry smile to his sister’s face.
“Oh, I knew you would tease me about being a watering-pot. Well, I shall tell you that I am not at all a feeble little thing anymore! I think I have managed quite well after Papa died; why, I have even been able to buy some new sheets for the beds, and our servants’ wages are only a few months in arrears!”
“And I should be grateful for the latter?” Richard said.
Marianne’s lips twisted briefly in a hard little smile. “Oh, yes. When Papa died, our servants—the ones we had left—had not been paid for a year.”
“I see. And our tenants?”
“They are desperately poor, Richard.” Her mouth trembled as if she were going to weep again, but she pressed her fingers to her lips as though to still her feelings. “They … have very little. I have gone out every day with food and what clothes I can find, but it is not enough. I do not even know if they have enough to move to a better estate than this one.” Closing her eyes briefly, she shook her head. “You will have to see for yourself.”
Her brother nodded in agreement and gazed at her, at the fleeting cynicism and sorrow that looked so foreign on her generous mouth. He had never remembered her so when she was a young girl, and before he had left for the army. He almost felt that he did not know her any longer. It had been four years; she had changed from a cheerful little girl to a grown woman who was trying to manage a household on almost nothing. He thought of the other young ladies her age, and knew she was far more mature than they. Hardship had made her so, he was sure.
“As far as the servants’ wages go, I think they will be able to be paid in full. I regret to say I must leave again for Bath—” He held up a hand at Marianne’s anxious look. “In a week’s time. I have … business there. Meanwhile, we do have a week, do we not?” He smiled. “You will have to let me know of the changes since I was last here,” he continued. “In fact, I am surprised that our cousin Wendle is not here. Did he not try to claim my title?”
Marianne grinned mischievously. “Oh, yes.”
Richard lifted his brows.
“He did indeed come. But I am afraid he left quite hurriedly.”
“Oh?”
“I shot him, you see. Papa taught me how to use a pistol—and a hunting rifle, too—before he died. I am quite good at it.”
“Good God.” He gazed at her in consternation. “Did he try to …”
Marianne blushed and looked away.
“By God, I knew he was a slimy little weasel, but I never thought he’d—” Richard gritted his teeth. “I will strangle him the next time I see him. He’ll not dare come near you or this house again, I swear it.”
She let out a little bubble of laughter. “Oh, you need not worry, truly! He thinks me an
absolute witch, an irredeemable hoyden. I took great care that he would remember I dislike him so—every time he sits down. I used rock salt, for I was so very angry that I was sure I would do him a great injury if I used shot.”
Richard stared at her, uncomprehending, then a slow grin grew on his face. His shoulders shook with silent laughter. “You are a little witch!”
Marianne pressed her lips together in a prim line, but her eyes danced merrily. “I am not. I was merely disposing myself of an unwelcome suitor.” Her brows creased thoughtfully. “It was unfortunate that he chose to travel here on horseback, too.”
Richard burst out laughing, unable to contain himself, and she joined him. After a few moments they subsided, and he grinned at her.
“You cannot dismiss all your suitors that way, you know.”
She smiled. “Oh, I don’t have any suitors, so that is neither here nor there, is it? I have enough to occupy myself, after all, without silly boys coming to call.”
There was silence, and then: “I understand Wyvern has called from time to time?”
Marianne glanced at him, blushing. “Oh, I daresay you have heard that I have gone to his house. But it is quite proper, I assure you! He is always sure to have a maid present if I cannot bring my own. I am governess to his two daughters, at an exorbitant wage, too! I thought at first it was charity on his part, but he pointed out he’d never been able to keep a governess on for more than a month. The girls are quite high-spirited, and I imagine an older governess would not do for them. And there are very few that want to stay at such a stark place, he says.”
“If he paid an exorbitant wage, I would imagine more than a few would risk it.” Richard’s lips twisted in a cynical smile.
She shook her head. “No, for Sarah and Stephanie are quite mischievous. They even set fire to one poor lady’s wig—although I am sure it was an accident, and not at all malicious.”
Richard’s smile turned amused. “And you are not daunted by them at all?”
“Oh, no. I can see how they might have made such a mistake in setting the wig afire. As for their tricks, why, they are precisely the ones you used to play on our governess, so I always know what to expect.” She smiled and shook her head fondly. “They really are the most darling girls.”
“I? I never set our governesses’ wigs on fire.”
“No, for none of them had wigs, but you did other things. I remember them all,” Marianne said, grinning. “So you see, it is not at all charity on Lord Wyvern’s part. I am simply the best one to keep the girls in proper order, and teach them, too.” Marianne said this with simple pride, and Richard could not bring himself to persuade her to cease her teaching, especially after he had railed at her for selling her hair.
“And how does Wyvern … treat you?” he could not help asking.
“Oh, well enough,” she said calmly, but blushed. “He is all that is proper and is most gentlemanly; he comes only to see how the girls are doing in their studies and their deportment and leaves soon after.”
“Does he? And that is why you are blushing now?”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Richard! As if there was anything in his behavior to blush about! It is just that I was thinking …” She smiled at him mischievously. “I was thinking he is nothing like the stories I used to make up about the Wicked Earl. He is quite ordinary, and very correct in his behavior. Quite the opposite from the way I had imagined him when I was a girl. Do you remember the stories we made up of him?”
Recalling them, Richard thought how he, too, had believed Wyvern quite ordinary when he invited him to play whist at White’s. He turned away to gaze out the window and made his voice as cheerful as possible. “Oh, yes, I remember. But people are rarely as one imagines them to be.” He turned back to her, hoping he had composed his expression to a sufficient calmness. Marianne smiled and took his arm, then leaned her cheek against his shoulder.
“Yes. Lord Wyvern is more pleasant than we had ever thought the Wicked Earl would be.”
Richard’s hand trembled on the edge of making a fist. “Yes. I suppose he is,” he replied.
The neglect and decay of his estate was worse than he had thought. Richard now understood why his solicitors would not meet his eyes when they told him into how much debt his father had driven the estate.
Richard sat on his horse and gazed at the huddled family before him. They were his tenants, but their clothes were almost as threadbare as a London beggar’s. He did not need to go into their hovel of a home to imagine its disrepair, it was clear from the random boards nailed ineffectively over holes that must have let in the cold and damp of a winter’s night. It was a pitiful attempt at holding their home together, but no doubt the man could do little else.
The man—Richard remembered his bailiff had said the man’s name was Wardle—cleared his throat and looked down at the ground. “My lord, I know ’tis past time for the rent… I know I told the bailiff I’d have it. But the crops warn’t so good this time, and my foot was broken this past spring, so I couldn’t put in as many crops. I swear, maybe a sen’night—”
“Good God, did you think I’d come here to collect the rent?” exclaimed Richard, aghast. He got down from his horse.
Wardle dared lift his eyes. It was a beaten look, as if he’d been threshed against poverty as hard as wheat against stone. “The bailiff, he said—”
“The bailiff’s a fool!” Richard said furiously. He stared at the babe wailing weakly at its mother’s breast—at the woman’s frightened, almost feral gaze. All the children had a listless manner, and their faces were pale and thin. He had never remembered the tenants like this, not before he had left for the army. What must his father have been thinking of? His breath went short with anger. Not of his tenants, certainly. “How long has it been like this? Your house, the lack of repairs?”
“ ’Twarn’t long, yer lordship, and not bad, beggin’ yer pardon, till maybe a year ago. Miss Marianne, she comes by to help, but with young ’uns the victuals goes quick, like.”
“A year!” The man’s words were like the blow of a hammer to Richard’s gut, leaving him breathless. These people had lived a year in this condition. He pushed his hand in his pocket, drawing out what coins he had in it. “Here, take this, and buy some food.”
The man stared at Richard’s out-thrust hand. “Why, why, that’s a whole five pound, yer lordship!” He did not touch the money.
Richard grasped the man’s rough hand and pressed the coins in to it. “Take it. I will not have people starving on my estate.”
Wardle stared at the money in his hands, as if it were some foreign thing. A shiver went through his thin frame, and a few coins clinked to the ground. With a sob the woman beside him bent and scrabbled for them, then clutched them as tightly to her breast as she did her own babe, and stared wildly at the viscount.
“Yer lordship …” the man said faintly. “I, I … thank you m’lord! Thank you!” Richard turned away, not wanting to see the tears he heard in Wardle’s voice.
He climbed on his horse and rode off. Something must be done, and if it meant his soul was lost in exchange for the lives of his tenants, so be it.
Chapter Five
“Dreaming, my dear?”
Eveline gave a little start. “Oh, I am sorry, Papa! I was not attending—how rude of me!” She turned from her seat by the parlor window and gave him all her attention. The bright sun and blue sky had beckoned her outside, but there was not anyone with whom she wished to go on an outing, really. So she sat in the parlor instead, listening to her father read from a newly purchased novel. Or rather, not listening, for her mind had clearly wandered.
“It is nothing, Evie.” Mr. Seton smiled. “I suppose you are thinking of some rascally young man who has caught your eye, eh?” He shifted himself in his Bath chair and wished he did not feel so uncomfortable. He did not come downstairs very often, but there had been something in his daughter’s expression, a sort of abstraction, that had caught his notice of late.
He was not a successful merchant by mere chance; he prided himself on his ability to pick up another’s intent or mood from the person’s telltale countenance.
His daughter blushed, but grinned mischievously. “Oh, no, dear Papa, much worse. He is all of a half-pay officer, just returned from the Peninsula.”
Mr. Seton’s eyebrows rose. “Is he, then? And I suppose this rogue is paying you extravagant compliments?” He pulled his wool blanket closer about him.
“Well, of course! Do not all rogues pay in Spanish coin?”
“Minx!” her father growled affectionately, but knew a moment’s uneasiness nevertheless. For all that Eveline teased, there was a certain light in her eyes when she talked of her admirer. Mr. Seton had always been proud of his daughter’s looks, her intelligence, and common sense. She had his own acute sense of the essentials of any situation, so much so that she handled with relative ease his business affairs when he had been so ill. But love, now. That was a different kind of cat altogether. It turned many a man’s wits to mush, and as for women …
“So tell me of your admirer, then. Especially his name.”
“Well, he is Richard, Viscount Clairmond. He was a captain in the Peninsular army.”
“A viscount, is he?” Mr. Seton’s gaze turned wary. “Better to stay with your own kind, Evie. Oh, I wouldn’t say nay to a title for you, and it would have been your mother’s dear wish. But a nobleman’s ways are different from ours.” A niggling uneasiness flowered in the back of the merchant’s mind. There was something about the name Clairmond … but he let it go. It would come to him in time.
“How different?” Eveline crossed the parlor to the mantelpiece, her steps impatient. She picked up a delicate porcelain Limoges egg without looking at it, and rolled it around in the palm of her hand. “Are noblemen without feelings? Are not morals and right behavior the same for all?”
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