Before Mary could be saved, for she did look a trifle hopeful at the interruption, Lord Robert took the situation to hand. “Mrs. Darlington,” he began with authority. “I understand that before you were the housekeeper you were Miss Fanley’s nurse?”
“Why, yes, sir. I nursed both her and Mr. Will from infancy, my lord,” asserted the lady with pride.
“Good. Then I am sure you perceive that Miss Fanley is still not quite recovered from her adventure of yesterday?”
Mrs. Darlington peered at Mary, and agreed with Lord Robert that she did look very pale, very pale indeed.
“Hm.” Lord Robert joined Mrs. Darlington’s close examination of Mary Fanley. “It is as I thought.” He straightened and addressed the housekeeper in a conspiratorial tone. “I perceive that the servants at Greenly Manor are much used to imposing on Miss Fanley for guidance at every turn. May I count on you to instruct them all to leave her be today, and to try to manage things as best they can?”
“It shall precisely as you say, sir,” Mrs. Darlington replied with her fists on her hips. “I am always saying they will run her to the ground one of these days, over the most trifling things.”
“I rely on you, then. Tell the cook to make a nice dinner for Mr. and Miss Fanley and myself, but nothing extravagant, mind. We will make a quiet party; if she can manage a capon with her special potatoes, and perhaps a soup and a pudding, we will be delighted.”
“Yes sir.” Mrs. Darlington nodded in reverence. “And the young master’s sheets, sir?”
“Air them, by all means,” he commanded. “Mr. Fanley will not be here before tomorrow. Send the footman in to clear the trays, and have a good fire made in the library, for I can see we will have no peace in this room. Miss Fanley and I will retire for a quiet morning of reading and conversation. Now, my good woman, be off to shield the young lady from distractions, and I’ll thank you very heartily.”
Mary sat through this exchange with a stunned face. When they were again alone, she protested. “You are very good at ordering my servants, sir.”
“I beg your pardon, but someone must. I have only ever seen them ordering you from one problem to another. Have you never thought to make Mrs. Darlington earn her post?”
He helped her to stand and walked with her down the hall to the library, where he placed her peremptorily into a cushioned chair and brought her a footstool.
She owned she was getting quite used to being steered around by him and not wanting to give him the satisfaction of perceiving her surrendered state, resorted to argument. “I see what you are saying, but my mother died when I was only eleven. I was never taught how to order anyone about. They had always had the rule of me when I was a child, and I could not quite be firm, especially with my nurse.”
He looked at her reprovingly. “I did not bring you here to talk about Mrs. Darlington.”
She gathered her dignity. “No, I expect you intend to scold me for yesterday. Well, I’m resigned to hear it, if you must lecture me…” She stopped abruptly and glared at him. “…but you know nothing about it, sir.”
“Resigned?” he asked heatedly. “I’ve no intention of sermonizing, but I will tell you that you are very lucky not to have been robbed or molested…or worse!”
“Indeed, sir, I am very grateful to you. I am well aware of how foolish it was. I can only claim to have been wholly preoccupied, otherwise I would never have gotten into such a…predicament! That you assisted me makes me indebted to you; were you to also refrain from the indelicacy of prying into my state of mind I would consider it an undeserved but most gentlemanlike kindness.” She glanced at him hopefully from beneath lowered lashes.
By his stony expression she could see he did not yield to this attack. “You forget, I am no gentleman. We of the nobility are rude enough, as I believe you put it, to circumvent common manners at every turn.”
“That was not precisely what I said.”
“No, it was perhaps couched a little more diplomatically,” he conceded. “But it was precisely what you meant. I overlook it because it is true, and also because it now serves me. I have no intention of sparing you an explanation.”
She bit her lip and stared into the fire, desperately trying to come up with the required account of why she was found tromping nearly ten miles away from home in a ditch at the side of the Westway road. At last she crumpled into her chair and confessed. “It is that my heart is broken,” she said wearily.
This caused his lordship to stand abruptly. “Your heart?” he demanded. He shook his head in bewilderment. “I had never suspected…You are not romantic in the least!”
She smiled sadly. “I’m not, am I? I am afraid I even botched your rescue to a degree.”
“You made it quite impossible for me to be chivalrous,” he complained. “But tell me, who is your swain and what has he done to you? Is it that dastard, Jack Himmel? Your father has a very dim view of him!”
She stared up at him as he prowled to and fro in front of the fireplace. “Oh, no sir! You misunderstand me. It is only that my brother Will is in the deepest kind of trouble and I am crushed with worry. I am not in love with Jack Himmel, or with anybody for that matter.”
A look flashed over his face, and she thought perhaps he was momentarily disgusted with her.
“I beg your pardon, sir.” She gathered her dignity. “I had no intention of burdening you with my trouble, and I am heartily sorry if I have been unseemly honest.”
“That is nonsense of the sort I’m used to in Town, Mary,” he said, harshly. “You will now do me the honour of telling me the entire tale.”
She began, haltingly; within five minutes she had enlightened him of the few facts in her possession. He listened gravely up to the point of the introduction of Oscar Neville; then, after a brief start, he stood and glowered down at her with a horrific scowl.
“Oscar Neville was a guest in this house?”
“Yes.” She had to tilt her head back very far in order to look up at him. “I beg your pardon, but do you mind sitting? I feel as if I am about to be overpowered…”
He merely stepped back and resumed pacing.
“Did he know I had been here?”
“Indeed, he became aware of it very soon. My father is uncommonly fond of you, and mentioned you a myriad of times over dinner.”
“And…” he stopped in mid-step and narrowed his eyes to look at her. “And…did he say anything? Did he say anything about me, that is? Did he — did he speak privately with Mr. Fanley?”
“Oh, he never did speak to my father. Papa did not warm to him really,” she hedged.
“But he did speak to you,” he said shrewdly.
“Yes, he told me you were a great scoundrel and an infamous rake and that you had squandered your family’s fortune, and — ” She hesitated. “ — he said you were hiding here in the country because you had all but killed a man…”
“And…?”
“And he told me you were a seducer,” she blurted out impulsively. “Which I could not believe, because — you will forgive me — but a seducer must be charming, I think!”
He paused and put his hands up to his eyes in a gesture she took for overriding anger. After a moment of terrible quiet, he began to laugh.
“Never tell me you have quarrelled with Mr. Neville, Mary,” he said knowingly.
“Well I could not help it!” she cried defensively. “He imposed himself upon me while I was quite alone, you know, and he warned me against you and said my reputation in being associated with you was forever tarnished. And he said it was a known speculation, which is the stupidest thing I have ever heard said, that you were being hunted by the law and that my Papa should never let you stay here.”
“And you defended me, Rabbit?”
Here she hesitated. “No, not precisely. But I did not like all that he was saying, and by this time I had suspected he was not quite the person we thought him, and I believe I would rather have my reputation permanently soiled by an infamous
rake than merely sullied by the likes of an oily-tongued person such as he! But he said I was to persuade my father to forbid you and Lord Eversham to come to Greenly Manor, and he was so insinuating…”
“Ah. Therein his mistake.”
“Well, I was insulted. And I told him I would not listen to him suggest my father must be led around by the nose.”
He looked at her in blank admiration. “You sent him packing, did you, my girl?”
“I am afraid I did. But it was no triumph, I assure you, because as I said, he now waits to collect his money with interest. Will is a high-tempered boy who will end it all in a duel or something horrible!”
“Thereby your broken heart?”
She could not stem the tears that filled into her eyes at the gentleness of his tone. He handed her his handkerchief, and she struggled for a moment before she sobbed openly.
“Mary, I can tolerate a few ladylike tears, but I despise common weeping. Be done with this and come to your senses. I need to compose a plan, and you will do me the honour of being quiet.”
She wiped her eyes and surreptitiously blew her nose before handing his handkerchief back to him. He looked at the damp, crumpled linen with a jaundiced eye, and admonished her to keep it.
“You mean to help us, sir?” Mary asked in disbelief.
His expression was grim. “I am bound in honour. Oscar Neville surely followed me here, and therefore his mischief is mine to fix.”
“But I do not understand. Why ever would he follow you here? Are you suggesting he ingratiated himself with my brother to achieve a purpose?”
“Of a certainly he did. You should want to know that the person I have ‘all but killed’ is his brother Richard.”
She started. “He is coming after you out of revenge?”
“Undoubtedly, but not out of any filial feeling. Richard Neville is a hated man. I am sure he will live for a hundred years on that head alone, for those that are truly deserving of an early end rarely die young. But he, Oscar and I have a long history of enmity. He is plucking Will to spite and provoke me.”
“Plucking?”
“As in a pigeon. It is the common word in certain circles for a young man of means, with no experience of the world, who is desperate to show he is game as a town buck.”
“I’m afraid my pigeon is about to drown himself in a river near Newcastle.” She dabbed her eyes again.
“My experience of pigeons is that they are very dramatic and talk of throwing themselves off of bridges, but they never do. Trust me, I have lost money wagering on this very question. Now, I will restore Will Fanley to Greenly Manor, and we will then set out to pluck Mr. Neville for a change. What say you to that, Rabbit?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mary Fanley, who had always had the weight of responsibility thrust on her young shoulders, sat in disbelief. For once in her life she would not have to solve a problem by herself. In fact, judging by the way Lord Robert prowled around the room and ruminated darkly for close to half an hour, she began to suspect she would have very little to contribute to his germinating solution.
She watched him fondly. He was so very tall and so striking in his polished top boots and buckskins, so much more a man than the men she knew. She felt that if he were to ever stop calling her “Rabbit” she might die of depression. Her faith in him was deepening by the moment. She sat by the fire with her feet propped up, every bit the damsel in her muslin, curls and ribbons, and fell into a complacent haze of complete reliance on her rescuing knight.
Eventually, the Marquis of Denley showed signs of reaching a resolution. He stepped over to the window. Resting his weight on his arms, he stared out into the drizzle of rain that had begun to fall. “I will have to sell Caesar,” he said grimly.
Mary started and rose to her feet. “No, you cannot sell him!”
He turned and gave her a half smile of regret. “I need capital, Mary, and the house of Devonshire is very poor.”
“Of course you are, if you have been very loose, but surely, there is no occasion to sell Caesar.”
“Do you intend to fund this expedition?” he asked with his right brow hitched provokingly.
The implication that she was wholly without means struck a chord with Mary’s native pride. She straightened and lifted her chin, saying with a touch of wounded dignity, “Of course, if you allow it.”
He regarded her indulgently. “We will need a great deal of money, Rabbit.”
This announcement seemed to deflate her a little. “Oh,” she said, cast down. “Will this be so very expensive?”
“Very.”
She thought for a moment. “That is too bad. I can manage ten thousand pounds, but more I cannot touch.”
He started and strode in one great step toward her. “Of what are you talking? How can you get a fortune?”
She looked up at him, her brown eyes wide, as if she was in a little trouble. “Well my mother was very rich you know, and she left me a deal of money for my dowry, which was very kind of her since I…” She hesitated and looked downcast. “Well, my prospects of making a great match are very dim, sir, if you will know the truth.”
He digested what she told him with his eyes fixated upon her. “Do you mean to tell me your mother was an heiress?”
“I never heard Papa call her an heiress,” she protested, as if the notion were a little repellent to her. “Her papa was brother to the Earl of Trimble, and he was very rich. I believe he settled a great deal on her, but she always said he was just glad she got an offer because she was not fair or blue-eyed like her sister.”
He stood back and crossed his arms in contemplation. “No doubt Mr. Fanley did not contemplate using a crown of her money.”
“Oh, no. He is very proud you know. He never would spend her money on anything, and as to his own, he only uses his capital for his estate, which has, so far, yielded more capital.”
A look of amusement suffused Lord Robert’s face. “I suspect, Rabbit, that makes you very, very rich yourself.”
“Oh, no! I would hate to be thought of as rich. It would be so lowering! Everyone would pander to me and I would become so…so indulged.” And then a thought struck her. “You will not be calling me an heiress next, will you sir?”
He chuckled. “No, I will next be calling you Ridiculous.”
She blushed furiously and retreated to her chair.
“Now tell me,” Robert said with renewed purpose, “does young Will not know he has great expectations?”
“Well, how could he when I hardly regard it myself? Yes, the estate is bountiful and I am sure we have a great deal saved in the bank. But economy is such an object for my father, and he would never call us rich. Besides, Will is devilishly expensive and leans to extravagance. I suppose we conspired to make him ignorant. But I beg you not to think the worst of him. When I offered to sell my mother’s pearls to get him out of this trouble he would not hear of it! As to my own particular inheritance…”
She fell into confusion. How could she explain she had not heretofore been willing to use it? Indeed, this quandary gave her pause, because she was eager to give up to Lord Robert what she could not bring herself to share with her brother! Her only recourse was to lie, albeit just a little. “…Well, it did not really occur to me until just now when you mentioned we would need a great deal of money! I hardly ever think of it. It is a painful reminder of my mother, you know, and besides, it would not serve.” At the end of the uncomfortable speech, she crossed her arms and cast him a defiant look.
“I infer that Will’s pride will not allow his older sister to fix his debts?”
“Oh, and he has been so cross with me for suggesting it!”
He grimaced. “Oh, dear, I suppose I will now have to cosset a manling.”
“That is exactly it. He will not allow me to mother him in the least.”
“You should never have had the mothering of him in the first place, my girl. It can hardly have been helpful. By his age, I had travelled the
world, insulted a great many people, lost and gained and lost again. And at fourteen I would have smelled Oscar Neville from a league away.”
She hung her head. “You find us despicably countrified.”
“Oh, unutterably, Rabbit,” he said smiling down at her. He lifted her chin and looked into her eyes, adding, “and I will beg you not to change for me. Now, which mattress in this house must I search to fund our adventure?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lord Robert was laughing at Mary Fanley, but she blushed hotly and confessed that there was some money locked in the bureau of her mother’s shuttered boudoir. When they removed to that chamber on pretence of his wanting to see a portrait of Mrs. Fanley in her youth, Mary pulled out her chatelaine’s keys and produced a package wrapped in linen.
This she handed directly over to him without demur, and he took it with a slight hesitation. “You are very trusting, Mary, to give me a piece of your inheritance when I have been exposed as a proper devil.”
“Well, certainly, I have no way to know why you have been so wretchedly bad, if indeed you were, and I cannot say I condone anything I have heard of you. But I have known you to be very scrupulous in your attentions to my father, in your plans for Treehill and in your treatment of me.”
“Scrupulous?” he remarked, with his half smile. “But I think I have not always been well-behaved toward you.”
“Nor I to you. And you have never misled me, even in your open dislike of me. So, it has come to pass that I trust you. Now sir, please tell me how this game will go?”
“First,” he said, cutting open the string on the linen packet and removing a few of the notes in it, “I will return this small sum against the unlikely outcome that I should fail. Do not look at me like that,” he cautioned darkly, “as it makes me feel as if I may. You have said you trust me: now you must believe in me, my girl.”
Grace Gibson Page 10