The Baron's Honourable Daughter

by Lynn Morris

  “And don’t I just wish he’d left them there,” Craigie muttered. “I see what Lady Jex-Blake is all about, and I’m thinking I know about the others too. Mrs. Purefoy and her sister Miss Shadwell, you know, are daughters of a gentleman, a respectable squire with a fair estate over in Surrey. Mrs. Purefoy married a Dr. Purefoy from there, and it’s my understanding that she nags him all the day long to move to London and open a practice there for the Quality, like she would know what that were if it bit her on the nose. But there you are, her and her sister both are hangers-on, trying to climb up by hook or claw. I’m thinking their friends are going to get that tired of hearing about the Earl of Maledon.”

  “I thought that about them too. Their fawning manners embarrass me. Miss Shadwell actually asked me to call her ‘Kit,’ did you know?” Valeria said with delicate distaste. In a falsetto mocking voice she went on, “Oooh, my name is Katherine, but I do so dislike ‘Kathy’ or ‘Kate,’ but I simply adore ‘Kit,’ all my friends call me ‘Kit,’ and we are going to be good friends, aren’t we, Miss Segrave?”

  Craigie’s bright smile showed itself again. “And what did you answer, may I ask?”

  “I said, ‘I find that it takes me many years before I consider a person a “good friend.”’ That put paid to that nonsense quickly. As I said, it’s a shame that she goes on and on, so coy and sickening-sweet, all of it such a pretense. If she would just be herself I might like her.”

  “I doubt it,” Craigie said dryly. “She’s a-carryin’ on with that Mr. Mayhew, you know.”

  Valeria’s eyes widened. “What? Here?”

  “’S’far as I know, no one’s seen them in what you might call a compromising position here.”

  “‘The Honourable’ Henry Mayhew,’” Valeria said. “Mamma did tell me that he’s the son of a viscount. That would be quite a catch for Miss Shadwell, even though he’s a younger son. I thought she was very flirtatious to him, but with her it’s so hard to tell, she makes love to everyone.”

  “How has he been with you, missie?” Craigie asked shrewdly.

  “With me? He’s treated me with the same bored disdain that he treats everyone, it seems, the silly fop. The only time I’ve seen him show any sign of life was at the card table, and he won a hand or two, I believe. His bleary eyes were quite sharp when they were gambling.”

  “Ah, but he lost too, didn’t he? I heard that Lady Jex-Blake took all of the gentlemen last night.”

  Valeria was bemused; again the servants knew more about the family’s activities than she did. Valeria, her mother, Mrs. Purefoy, and Miss Shadwell had been playing a sedate game of whist while Lady Jex-Blake had played all fours with the gentlemen. Valeria herself didn’t know who had won and who had lost at the next table. “Did she? They were so loud and boisterous I finally just made myself ignore them.”

  “Oh, yes, your stepfather lost nineteen pound—nineteen pound! Though he laughed about it. Mr. Mayhew lost eight pound, and he can ill afford to lose it, for he’s far overspent on his allowance and deep in debt, I hear. He’s the fifth son, you know, and Lord Erdeswick’s loath to keep bailing him out. Miss Shadwell might as well forget the likes of him, he’ll be finding himself some stupid young girl, daughter of a merchant, I would imagine, with a hefty portion. And Colonel Bayliss is little better off, he’s running his farm into the ground to finance his horses and carriages and town house and all his airs.”

  Valeria felt a deep shudder of revulsion at the mention of Colonel Bayliss’s name. He was about the same age as her stepfather, in his early fifties, she supposed, a big bluff man with a barrel chest and thinning dark hair and small dark eyes. As he spoke to her, his gaze constantly crawled from her face down to her breasts in the most disagreeable manner imaginable. That had been bad enough, but then she had seen him do the same to her mother, and it had sickened Valeria so much that she could hardly eat.

  “What is wrong with my stepfather?” she asked gutturally. “How can he subject my mother to this?”

  Craigie’s mouth tightened. “I think he’s sick.”

  “You mean his dyspepsia? For two years now that’s all he’s complained about! Indigestion is no excuse for his horrible behavior!”

  “That’s not what I mean. I think something is really wrong with him, and it’s affected his mind, like.”

  Alertly Valeria asked, “Has my mother said something to that effect?”

  “No. But she wouldn’t, even if that’s what she thinks, not even to me.”

  Valeria grew quiet. She remembered when her mother had first married Lord Maledon. She was eleven, and all she could think of him was that he was so very old. She had come to understand that he wasn’t, really; he had been forty-four when he married Regina. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a fine physique, thick salt-and-pepper hair, and a well-formed, strong face. In the last two years, however, he had aged much, and not well. He had developed a big belly while his legs and arms had grown thinner. His face was always red, and a tracery of crimson vein-lines had developed on his nose. Valeria thought this wasn’t surprising, for he had begun to drink great quantities of port wine.

  “I think he drinks too much,” she said angrily, “and that’s an even more pitiful excuse than dyspepsia. And he looks awful. How can my mother love him? Does she? Does my mother really love him, Craigie?”

  Craigie’s eyes softened to a velvety blue, and she reached out and patted Valeria’s hand. “The things that I most admire about your mother are her code of honor, her loyalty, and her sense of duty. In those three things she’s the strongest person I’ve ever had the blessing to know. Yes, she loves him. You and I may not be able to understand it, dear, but Lady Maledon loves her husband.”

  * * *

  As Valeria walked the half mile across the park to the orchards later that day, she thought long and hard about what Craigie had said about her mother’s loving Lord Maledon. She often thought about, wondered about, and dreamed about Love. She had a passionate nature, and she longed to fall in love with a handsome, strong, intelligent, witty man who, of course, adored her. This man was rather vague in her imaginings. Valeria had never conceived a crush on anyone, and so her dream lover was more of a thought than a vision. The few young men she had met had been, she thought, singularly unimpressive. Like the Honourable Henry Mayhew, with his affected heavy-lidded bored expression and dreary conversation.

  And what about her mother and Lord Maledon? How could her mother love him? Or, more to the point, was her mother in love with him?

  Is there a difference? she wondered. Or is “falling in love” some sort of illusion? Valeria honestly didn’t know. The only thing she did know was that she couldn’t possibly marry a man whom she merely esteemed and respected, if that was what her mother felt for Maledon, or at least had when she married him. Valeria knew she would have to love a man breathlessly, passionately, hopelessly before she could contemplate spending her life with him.

  As if I should worry about it, she thought moodily. My stepfather is never going to let me go to London, and the chances of meeting a man here are very slim. I’ll probably end up a lonely spinster.

  Valeria was supposed to come out, and be presented at court, in the previous London Season, when she had turned seventeen. But her stepfather had told her mother and her that, due to King George’s illness, no Drawing Rooms were being held by Queen Charlotte and it would do no good for them to go to London. He himself had gone because the beginning of the Season coincided with the opening of Parliament, and of course the Earl of Maledon sat in the House of Lords.

  This year he hadn’t even attempted to make any excuses, and Valeria hadn’t asked him about her presentation at court, or going to London. By then she’d been loath to ask him for anything.

  Valeria’s bleak mood lightened when she reached the orchards. They covered several acres, with the walnut, plum, and cherry trees planted in neat long rows. The walnuts would not be ready for harvest until next month, but the plums and cherries were
in season. Almost every tree had a ladder against it, with the regular gardeners, their children, and many of the children and young people from surrounding farms picking the ripe golden plums and the bunches of crimson cherries. Every man and boy doffed his cap as she passed, and the young girls made shaky little bobs on their ladders.

  Valeria saw Tollar picking plums and whistling, and with a little chill of dread she wondered if he had still been in the arbor when Lord Maledon and Lady Jex-Blake had come blithely running by. Of course he must have been, Valeria had passed him and Skelley only a few moments before. But as Tollar looked up, then doffed his cap to her, she saw no sign on his homely honest face, which made her feel a little better. “Have you seen my brother and Niall, by any chance, Tollar?” she called up to him.

  “Yes, miss, they’m in the cherry orchard. I’m of a mind that there’s a bit of a race on to see who can pick the mostest cherries,” he answered cheerfully.

  In truth, the servants weren’t supposed to speak unless spoken to, and when asked a question, they weren’t supposed to say a single word except to answer it. But in spite of the fact that Valeria barely knew the house servants, she knew all the gardeners because of her constant roaming about the grounds, gardens, and park, and because since she had arrived at Bellegarde Hall she had, over the course of the years, probably asked every one of them at least ten thousand questions. They were more at ease with her than were the house servants.

  “Oh dear, poor Mr. Chalmers,” she sighed. “He does have such a time keeping those two little rogues out of trouble.”

  “Don’t we all, miss?” Tollar grinned.

  Niall was Craigie’s and Ewan Platt’s son, not quite a year older than St. John. Like his mother and father, Niall held a special place in the family—at least with Regina and Valeria and St. John, if not with St. John’s father the earl.

  Craigie had finally gotten pregnant in 1804, after she and Ewan had been married for nine years. Regina had been rapturously happy for her. When she had gone into labor, Regina insisted that she be moved into one of the guest bedchambers and be attended by her own midwife and physician. It was fortunate that Craigie had such expert attendants, because the delivery had been a nightmare. After twenty long excruciating hours of labor, it was seen that the baby was in a breech presentation. At first the physician had thought that he might have to call in a surgeon to perform a cesarean section—an almost certain sentence of death for Craigie. Sepsis nearly always followed any abdominal surgery.

  But the midwife, an old woman who had attended over three hundred births, had been able to shift the baby, and Niall was born a strong, strapping, healthy child. Unfortunately Craigie had been damaged internally, and would conceive no more. In the midst of her joy, Craigie mourned, and Regina mourned with her as deeply as any sister ever could have.

  A year later, when St. John was born, it was inevitable that Craigie would be his nurse; indeed Valeria thought wryly that it would have been impossible for anyone to stop her. Certainly her stepfather hadn’t been able to. He objected strenuously to the son of a coachman and lady’s maid being brought up in the same nursery as his own son, but somehow—Valeria wasn’t sure how—her mother had been able to persuade him. And again, when St. John turned five, Lord Maledon had engaged a tutor for him, a distant cousin named Gordon Chalmers, and there was Niall, in the schoolroom. Valeria smiled as she thought of how her stepfather had grumbled; yet he allowed it.

  Ahead she heard the piping voice of her brother, six-year-old St. John. “I’m picking faster than you, Nee-All! My side of the tree will be finished before your side of the tree!”

  “Oh, no you don’t, Sayeent Jawn! I’m taller, I can pick higher!” Niall taunted back.

  Valeria giggled as she heard them teasing each other about their names. The name St. John was pronounced Sinjin, and Niall was pronounced Neel. They had called each other by the correct pronunciations since they both were able to talk, but when they had learned the spellings, they had been greatly amused, and had teased each other ever since. Niall had much more ammunition than the son of the Earl of Maledon, for St. John’s full name was St. John Charles George Bellegarde, his courtesy title was Viscount Stamborne, and he was supposed to be addressed as Lord Stamborne. Niall carefully called him “my lord” and referred to him as “Lord Stamborne” in front of adults, particularly Lord Maledon; but when they were at leisure he made up creative nicknames. Sadly for St. John, there was not much he could do with plain “Niall Platt,” but he still managed some puns about nails and flats and knees.

  Valeria found the tree they had attacked, for on either side a ladder reached up into the thick foliage with hardly a sign of the boys buried in it, and their tutor, Mr. Chalmers, stood at the foot of one ladder, glowering. “My lord, get back down on that third step or I shall climb up there and haul you down bodily!” he shouted.

  A vague “Yes, sir,” was heard; branches shook and foliage rustled. Then St. John fell.

  With a quickness and agility that Valeria could hardly credit to Mr. Chalmers, he stepped over and neatly caught St. John in his arms. But Mr. Chalmers was neither sturdy nor strong, and he crashed straight down onto his back, with St. John ending up sitting on his stomach.

  Valeria rushed to her brother and slid to her knees. “St. John, are you hurt?” she cried.

  He blinked. “Hullo, Veri. No, I’m not hurt.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He stood up and stared down at his tutor. “Quite sure, thank you. Mr. Chalmers caught me.”

  Valeria looked down. Mr. Chalmers seemed to be in great distress. His blue eyes were stretched wide, and his mouth was gaping open. Valeria snatched off her hat and began fanning him with it. “Oh, Mr. Chalmers, please, do you—are you—” She was very frightened that he might be having apoplexy, or perhaps heart failure.

  “I think I squashed the breath out of him,” St. John observed. “It happened to me once, when Niall hit me in the stomach with a cricket ball. I couldn’t catch my breath for it seemed like forever.”

  Niall had hopped down and was standing over Mr. Chalmers. He muttered, “I didn’t mean to.”

  Valeria had never been in the position of having the breath knocked out of her, and she thought Mr. Chalmers looked near death. The expression on his face was one of utter horror. Finally he gasped, and gulped in a deep breath. “Miss Segrave! I do beg your pardon!” he grunted painfully.

  “What?” she said blankly.

  He struggled, flopping a little and still gasping. Two gardeners who had come running up took his hands and helped him to rise. They started brushing him off, and he murmured in confusion, “No, really…thank you…no, that’s fine…where is my hat?”

  Valeria retrieved his straw hat and handed it to him. He put it on, then snatched it back off and made a shaky bow. “Miss Segrave, I do beg your pardon,” he said again.

  “Why should you beg my pardon, sir?” she rasped.

  It’s the way with adults who’ve witnessed a child doing a stupid, dangerous thing to get angry when they see the child is really all right. Valeria rounded on her brother. “St. John! Whatever were you thinking? You frightened me half to death, never mind squashing out poor Mr. Chalmers’s air!”

  “Sorry,” he murmured. He bent his head, the crisp brown curls shining in the sun, and scuffed the grass with one toe. “I only wanted to pick some cherries that were up high.” He looked back up at her, and Valeria could see real repentance in his unusual tawny brown eyes.

  Sternly she said, “You must apologize to Mr. Chalmers.”

  St. John went to stand in front of his tutor and looked up at him appealingly. “I’m sorry I climbed too high, and fell down and squashed you, sir.”

  “That’s all very well,” he said kindly. “But next time, you will do as I say, and not climb up to the very top rung.”

  “So there will be a next time, sir?” St. John asked brightly.

  “Yes, but not today. Getting squashed once a day is quite enough f
or me.” He turned back to Valeria and made another bow, this time with elegance. “Miss Segrave, now that I have regained a semblance of my senses, I will say good afternoon in a more civilized manner.”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Chalmers,” she said, smiling. “Please don’t worry, your manners are always without fault, even when you are—um—breathless. I came out, thinking I might do some cherry-picking myself, but I agree with you, I think we’ve had quite enough of that today. Why don’t we return to the house, and have a cup of tea? I feel I need the fortification, and I’m certain that you must.”

  “But Veri, my bag is still up in the tree, and I’m sure I picked more than Niall,” St. John said in a small voice.

  “Before you toppled out of the tree like a dead crow?” Niall snickered.

  “That’s enough,” Mr. Chalmers said sternly. “Miss Segrave has expressed a wish to return to the house and have a cup of tea. Gentlemen always accede to a lady’s wishes.”

  Valeria came close to him and looked up expectantly. His fair smooth cheeks colored slightly, and he offered her his arm. He never made this gesture unless Valeria initiated it, she had found.

  Valeria always made an effort to put him at ease, and she often wondered why it was necessary. Mr. Chalmers was masterful and authoritative with the boys, and was deferential but not unduly so to Lord and Lady Maledon. At first Valeria had thought that he was shy of her because she was the daughter of a peer, but since he had such an easy attitude with her mother and stepfather she knew that his diffidence with her couldn’t be attributed to the awe that many commoners had for the nobility. Valeria really didn’t know why she seemed to make him nervous, but she liked the tutor, so she did her best to overcome his reticence.

  “May we run?” St. John asked, his eyes again bright.