A Most Unusual Lady

by Janet Grace

  She chided herself for feeling so left out. She had had a dear husband, had mourned him truly, and was beginning a new life. She would not lose her brothers when they married, she told herself sternly. She would gain two sisters, and already she was fond of them. She had so many friends and acquaintances. Surely somewhere among them she could find someone who was just as right for her?

  She straightened her drooping shoulders firmly and, calling Meggie to come and help, went to take another considering look at her wardrobe. London, she decided, was going to notice she was back!

  Robert, having rejected John’s hopeful choice of hunter, and helped him, without success, to look for a horse suitable for Georgiana to ride while she was in town, was now pacing restlessly around Henrietta’s sitting-room. Soon, he knew, she would come in and accuse him of prowling like the tigers at the Tower. Already John was glaring at him as he stumbled over his outstretched, reclining feet. However was he to fill the hours until the evening?

  He suddenly realised, with utter certainty, that he could not possibly wait until the evening to see her. The idea had been ridiculous. He ordered around his curricle, bid a shouted farewell to his brother and sister, and made all haste to Gudrigan Square, unlucky crossing sweepers leaping from his wheels.

  She was not, of course, ready to drive out. Like Henrietta, she was clad in a loose gown for the house, hers, with immaculate patches stitched to the elbows, of an old, exotically flowered silk. Her face lit up when she saw him, then she flew to her room, and she was changed and ready for him at a speed he found unexpected, but delightful. After doing the polite thing by Lady Mondfort, he was able to hand her up into the curricle and whisk her away.

  ‘My lord.’

  ‘No ... Robert,’ he corrected gently.

  ‘Yes, but I have, this morning, been considering your proposal...’

  ‘With no regrets, I trust?’ He smiled.

  He reached a quick hand across to squeeze hers, before, of necessity, concentrating his attention upon his horses, and upon the unmitigated folly of the driver ahead who was attempting to turn a nervous team of four in the narrowest portion of the street.

  ‘Regrets, no. But consider—the children!’

  ‘Children?’ He chuckled. ‘Surely your concern is a little premature? We have none, as yet!’

  ‘Sir!’

  He knew she was blushing, and gave her a quick, laughing look.

  ‘My lord,’ she continued firmly, ‘you know I meant my work, the children I teach. I cannot just abandon them.’

  ‘My dearest one, no. I had a suspicion you might feel that you could not just abandon them.’ The street was now clear and he urged the horses on towards the park. ‘But I feel certain that Mrs. Addiscombe will accept with thanks your offer to select a governess suitable to replace you, and the invitations, you might give, to have the children to stay at Alnstrop.’

  ‘You would not mind? Truly?’

  ‘My dear, if it delights you, it will delight me.’

  She sighed happily, then, ‘But there is another problem.’

  ‘Ah.’ They had entered Hyde Park now, and, avoiding the much-used roads where people rode to see and be seen, he drove along the quieter tracks. ‘I had not anticipated another problem, but I do not believe it will prove insurmountable. Tell me.’

  ‘The pugs. Aunt Honoria’s pugs. I am to inherit them!’

  Alnstrop raised his eyes to the heavens.

  ‘Dear Lord! Did it have to be pugs? But even with pugs you cannot deter me. The pugs shall play with the children! Have you any other problems, or will you now resign yourself to be mine?’

  ‘I shall continue knitting!’

  ‘I have my order for new stockings drawn up!’

  She had to laugh.

  ‘Why, then you are somewhat overtrusting, sir, or else your feet are a stranger shape than I had anticipated in my husband!’

  ‘No, no. My faith in your abilities is boundless. You will produce me stockings!’ He was allowing the horses to idle between the trees. ‘But why ever did you agree to take Aunt Honoria’s pugs?’

  ‘Oh, they are not so bad. And I thought then that I would need something to keep me company and entertain me.’

  He chuckled again.

  ‘And now you consider me to be a sufficient replacement for the company of the pugs?’

  ‘I am hoping so, my lord!’

  ‘I shall have to watch these animals closely. If I catch you talking to them, I will know that you need entertaining, and I am failing in my husbandly duties.’

  ‘Well, sir, if that is the case, I shall certainly talk...’ She was laughing, but she suddenly blushed and stopped, confused.

  His response was delighted.

  ‘Will you, my dearest?’ He looped the reins loosely over his arm, and pulled her towards him. ‘In that case I shall train these dogs to become constantly conversational.’

  ‘My lord—Robert, you cannot take my bonnet off here!’

  ‘Can I truly not? But then, I happen to know that it is possible to sneak under the brim of a bonnet of this type!’

  ‘Really, sir? And where might you have acquired that information?’

  He was chuckling, holding her close.

  ‘It is essential knowledge for any gentleman. Shall I prove it to you?’

  The horses stood quietly in the shade, idly shifting their feet and swishing their tails, while Lord Alnstrop proved decisively that he was right.

  Later, when the bonnet was still on, but undeniably askew, and she was resting her head against his shoulder, she suddenly had another thought. Sitting upright and earnestly taking his hand, she attempted a serious face.

  ‘I have just considered another problem.’

  ‘Yes?’

  He loved to watch her as she talked. He gently reached to twist an errant curl around his finger. She rubbed her cheek against his hand.

  ‘I had a letter from my mama.’

  He raised his eyebrows lazily.

  ‘She said that Susannah—my younger sister, you remember?’

  He nodded, amused.

  ‘She is to marry Mr. Sowthorpe!’

  He waited.

  ‘Is that all?’ He sounded genuinely perplexed. ‘Who is Mr. Sowthorpe?’

  ‘He is that dreadful man! The one who wanted to marry me.’

  ‘Oh? So this is how you judge a man to be dreadful? I would have concluded that he was a man of remarkable taste and discrimination!’

  ‘No, no, no! You don’t understand. He is a fat farmer with bristly hair who breeds pigs, and when he is married to Susannah, if I am married to you, he will be your brother-in-law! He will expect to stay at Alnstrop. It will be quite dreadful. You could not wish that. I could not do it to you!’

  Her face was suddenly aghast at this appalling vision, and she was startled when he broke into a shout of laughter.

  ‘You think your picture of this pigman will scare me from the delight of my life? Nonsensical girl! Why, if my new brother-in-law wishes to stay at Alnstrop he may come, and bring all his pigs as well for all I care, sows, boars and piglets! Just as long as I have you.’

  He continued to chuckle as he held her.

  ‘Sow now, my love, have you done boaring me with these things? The pigs will present no problem, and,’ he paused, racking his brain for more appalling puns, then grinned, ‘and the rest can be held at bay conditional upon your marriage to me!’

  ‘Robert, this is not what I expected of you!’ She assumed an air of outrage. ‘I am astounded to hear such a poor class of humour.’

  ‘Oh? But I feel no gilt!’

  ‘Guilt?’

  ‘A gilt is a young sow. Did you not know? Just as well you did not marry your pigman, showing such ignorance.’

  ‘Be careful, my lord, or I shall be showing something rasher than that!’

  ‘Oh, very good! But I ham perplexed by any possible pun for chitterlings! Can we trot along and contemplate the subject?’

  They co
uld, and they did, with many humorous and tortuous suggestions, before Louisa announced firmly that, to her mind, chitterlings had no future at all as a pun!

  The shadows were lengthening in the warm summer evening when Alnstrop eventually wended the curricle through the streets to Belnaughton Place. The town was quiet in the lull when the workers had trudged home to their suppers, and the frivolous were still posturing in front of their mirrors before seeking the pleasures of the town. The day’s dust was settling, birds could be heard over the roof-tops, and the brickwork of the sooted houses glowed pink again in the evening light.

  None of this added charm to Lord Luddenay’s house, which stood stark and unyielding before them.

  ‘Grim old tomb of a place,’ Robert remarked lightly, as he jumped down. ‘No wonder the old man was so dour for so long. Anyone would be, living here.’

  They were admitted by Whistler, and a groom took the curricle round to the mews at the back.

  ‘So good to see you again, Miss Louisa. Very good,’ Whistler wheezed and nodded. ‘Just follow me. His lordship is expecting you.’

  He shuffled before them, back bent, his shrivelled neck protruding from the shiny black jacket like that of a tortoise.

  Louisa took Robert’s arm, and he smiled down at her reassuringly.

  ‘No more time to think of problems now, my love.’

  The solemn, marble-floored hall, overlooked by generations of Louisa’s ancestors, seemed to make their commitment to each other suddenly formal.

  ‘Nor would I wish to think of any.’

  She smiled confidently up at him as they entered the library for her grandfather’s blessing.