by Mary Balogh
And so he was bored and restless and none too happy. He had taken to staying away from home at Wightwick Hall in Gloucestershire, which could only remind him of the domestic bliss he had once dreamed of and never found, and instead wandered about the country, going from one house party to another, from one pleasure spa to another, in search of that elusive something that would spark his interest again.
He was coming now from Yorkshire, from an extended Easter visit with Carew and his lady at Highmoor Abbey. He had also seen a great deal of the Earl of Thornhill, whose estate adjoined Carew’s. And as fate would have it, Lord Francis Kneller had been staying there for a visit, though he and his family had returned home a few weeks ago. Three couples, three marriages, all of which had frightened the duke out of his dreams of love and romance and happily ever afters. Three couples who were ironically proceeding to do what he had once dreamed of doing himself. Three happy and prolific couples. The two estates had seemed to teem with noisy, unruly, exuberant, strangely lovable children—Thornhill’s three, Carew’s two, and Kneller’s four.
Bridgwater had never felt more alone than he had for the last several weeks. He had been a valued friend of everyone, a spouse and a lover of no one. He had been a favored uncle to nine children, a father to none.
He was desperate for diversion. So desperate, in fact, that he rapped on the front panel almost without hesitation as a signal for his carriage to stop when he spotted the little ladybird who was standing out in the middle of nowhere begging a ride when no respectable woman had any business doing either. Of course she was no respectable woman. She looked ludicrously out of place in her surroundings. She looked as if she might have just stepped out of a particularly lurid bawdy house—or out of a second- or third-rate theater.
Well, he thought, if love and romance had passed him by, there were other pleasures that assuredly had not—though he preferred to draw his mistresses and even his casual amours from the ranks of the rather more respectable.
She was disconcertingly dusty and shabby and wrinkled despite the splendor and gaudiness of the garments she wore. She was unconvincingly meek and mild, clutching at her shabby reticule with both hands as she stood beside his carriage and directing her eyes downward at it as if she expected him to wrest the wretched item from her grasp and give Bates the order to spring the horses. He was sorry in his heart that he had stopped. He was really not in the mood for the kind of gallantry that her type called for. And one never quite knew how dangerous it was to dally with total strangers. He felt irritable. But he had stopped. It would be cruel to drive on again and leave her standing there just because he was bored and not really in the mood, after all. Someone else had obviously kicked her out of another carriage and abandoned her, creating a rather nasty situation for her.
He just wished she would not play the part of demure maiden. It was rather like an exotic parrot masquerading as a gray squirrel.
But then she raised her eyes and looked full at him, and he saw that they were fine eyes—hazel with golden lights. They were large and clear and intelligent. They coolly assessed him. He sighed and hopped out to hand her in. He could not, after all, allow her to squeeze in between Bates and Hollander and distract them from the serious business of conveying him a certain number of miles before nightfall without overturning him into a ditch. Perhaps it would relieve his boredom somewhat to discover between here and the next village why she was in the process of walking all the way to Hampshire with only a small and shabby reticule for company.
Miss Gray. Miss Gray. It was too laughably inappropriate to be real. Miss Whatever-Her-Name-Was was also traveling incognito, he thought. Well, let her keep her real name to herself if she so chose. It mattered not one iota to him.
In addition to the fine eyes, he noticed, studying her at his leisure after his carriage was in motion again, she had a pretty face, which he was surprised to see was free of paint. Her auburn hair, just visible beneath the appallingly vulgar bonnet, clashed unfortunately with everything she wore—except for the gray dress he could glimpse beneath the cloak. She was younger than he had at first thought. She was not above five-and-twenty at a guess.
Her eyes, which had been directed at her lap, now lifted and focused on his. Oh, yes indeed, very fine eyes, and she was experienced at using them to maximum effect. He resisted the impulse to press his shoulders back against the cushions in order to put more distance between them and his own. He raised his eyebrows instead.
“Well, Miss Gray,” he said, putting a slight emphasis on her name to show her that he did not for one moment believe that it was real, “might one be permitted to know why you are going to Hampshire?”
It was an impertinent question. But then she was no lady, and he had a right to expect some diversion as payment for conveying her a few miles along her way.
“I am going to take up my inheritance there,” she said. “And I am going to make an advantageous marriage.”
He folded his arms across his chest and felt eternally grateful to the fates that had arranged for him to spot her beside the road as his carriage sped past her, though he had been dozing a mere five minutes before. He was not to be disappointed in her. She was going to regale him with a wonderfully diverting and extremely tall story. As tall as Jack’s beanstalk, perhaps? She also, he noticed, spoke with a refined accent. Someone had invested in elocution lessons for her.
“Indeed?” he said encouragingly. “Your inheritance?” Having made such a bold and vivid start, surely she would need only a very little prodding to continue. He would explore the inheritance story first. When they had exhausted that, he would prompt her on the advantageous match story. If she was very inventive, he might even agree to take her on to the next village but one.
“My grandfather recently died,” she said, “and left his home and his fortune to me. It is rather large, I believe. The house, I mean. Though the fortune is too, for that matter, or so I have been informed. It was a great surprise. I never knew him, you see. He was my mother’s father, but he turned her off when she married my father and never saw her again.”
He would wager half his fortune that the father would be a country vicar when she got around to describing him. It was the old cliché story—the great heiress marrying the poor country curate for love and living happily and poorly ever after. Bridgwater had hoped she would be more original. But perhaps she would improve once she had warmed to her story.
“Your father?” he asked.
“My father was a clergyman,” she said. “He was neither wealthy nor wanted to be. But he and my mother loved each other and were happy together.”
They would both be deceased, of course. Now what would Miss Gray have done when they died? She would have taken employment, of course, rather than go begging to her mother’s wealthy father. Of course. Nobility and pride would have conquered greed. Employment as what, though? Something suitably genteel. Not a chambermaid. Never a whore. A lady’s companion? A governess? The latter at a guess. Yes, he would wager she would decide on the governess’s fate. But no, that would be impossible. She would not be able to choose the governess’s role convincingly when she was dressed as she was. He wondered if she would think of that in time.
“They are both deceased?” He made his voice quiet and sympathetic.
“Yes.”
He was pleased to see that she did not draw a handkerchief out of the reticule to dab at her eyes. She would have lost him as an audience if she had done so. Abjectness, even as an act, merely irritated him. More important, she would have doomed herself to getting down at the very next village. He wondered who had booted her out of his carriage a few miles back and why. His eyes moved down her body. The cloak was rather voluminous, but he guessed that it hid a figure that was perhaps less voluptuous than he had first thought.
“I took a position as a governess when Papa died,” she said. “In the north of England.” She gestured vaguely in his direction.
A very strange and eccentric governess she wo
uld have made. He amused himself with images of her in a schoolroom. He would wager that she would hold the fascinated attention of children far more easily than the gray, mouse-like creatures who normally fulfilled the role. The mistress of the house might have an apoplexy at the sight of her, of course. The master of the house, on the other hand …
“And then,” he said, “just when you thought you were doomed forever to that life of lonely drudgery, you received word of the demise of your grandfather and his unexpected bequest.”
“It was unexpected,” she said, looking at him with an admirable imitation of candor. “He did not even reply to Papa’s letter telling him of Mama’s passing, you see. Besides, my mother had a brother. I suppose he must have died without issue. And so my grandfather left everything to me.”
“Your grandfather lived in Hampshire?” he asked.
She nodded. She looked at him with eager innocence. With a butter-would-not-melt-in-my-mouth look. He wondered where she had slept last night. Her cloak looked distinctly as if it might have been slept in. The dreadful plumes in her bonnet looked rather sorry for themselves. And he wondered too how much money her reticule held. Certainly not enough to buy her a stage ticket to wherever it was she was going. Unless, of course, she disdained to spend money so senselessly when she could cajole bored travelers like himself into giving her carriage room in exchange for stories—and perhaps, if not probably, in exchange for something else. Perhaps if he asked her given name, she would call herself Scheherazade. Scheherazade Gray. Yes, it would suit her. Was she hungry?
But he did not want to feel pity for her. He wanted to be amused. And so far she was marvelously diverting. He had cheered up considerably.
“And so,” he said, “having discovered what a great heiress you had become, you were so filled with excitement and the desire to exchange one sort of life for the other that you rushed from your employer’s home in the north of England, carrying only the clothes on your back and a reticule, in order to walk to your new home in Hampshire. You are an impetuous young lady. But then, who on hearing of such a reversal in fortune would not be?”
She flushed and leaned back in her seat. “It was not quite as you imagine,” she said. “But close enough to be embarrassing.” She smiled at him to reveal a dimple in her left cheek—not to mention white and even teeth. Her eyes sparkled with merriment and with mischief. Yes, definitely. And he would wager that she knew the effect of that smile on her male victims. On his guard as he was, he felt his stomach attempt a creditable imitation of a headstand. Yes, indeed—an accomplished ladybird.
“They were to send a carriage for me,” she said, “and servants. I was very tempted to wait for them and to tell my employers of my good fortune. They had not been kind to me, you see, though the children were dears most of the time. They made pretensions of being grander than they were and treated me as if I had been born of a lesser breed. I know that they would have turned instantly and despicably obsequious if they had found out. They would have fawned on me. I would suddenly have become their dearest friend in all the world, one whom they had always loved as if I were truly a member of their family. It was tempting. But it was also sickening. I did not wish to see it. So I did not wait for the carriage to arrive. I left very early one morning without giving notice—though that did not matter since I had not been paid for the last quarter anyway.”
He pursed his lips. He had to admit it was an amusing story. He could almost picture her mythical governess self striding down the driveway of the home of her erstwhile employers, not looking back, her plumes nodding gaily in the breeze.
“And so,” he said, “you left without even enough money in your reticule to get you to Hampshire—unless you either walked or begged rides.”
She flushed again, more deeply than before, and he felt almost sorry for his unmannerly words.
“Oh, I had enough,” she said. “Just. I bought my tickets for the stage and still had enough with which to buy refreshments on the way and even a night or two of lodging if necessary. Unfortunately, I put both the money and the tickets in my valise for safekeeping.”
And the valise had been stolen. It was priceless. Actually, the predictability of her story was proving more amusing after all than originality might have been.
“My valise was stolen,” she said, “while I was changing stages. I left it for no longer than five minutes in the care of a woman with whom I had been traveling. She seemed so very kind and respectable.”
“I suppose,” he said, “no thief worth his salt would advertise his profession by appearing unkind and unrespectable and expect naive travelers to entrust property to his care.”
“No, I suppose not,” she said, looking up at him again. She smiled fleetingly. “I was very foolish. It is too embarrassing to talk about.”
And yet she had talked about it to a complete stranger.
“And so,” he said, “you have been reduced to walking.”
“Yes.” She laughed softly, though she was clever enough to make the laughter sound rueful rather than amused.
“And do you,” he asked, “have enough money in your reticule to feed yourself as you walk?”
“Oh yes.” Her eyes widened and the flush returned. “Yes, indeed. Of course I do.”
A nice little display of confusion and pride. But really, how much money was in her reticule?
He had not noticed the approach of the village—a strange fact since it was the approach of villages and towns and inns with which he had attempted to relieve his boredom during his journey. The carriage was slowing and then turning into an inn yard. It was a posting inn, he guessed. Time to change the horses and have something substantial to eat.
“Oh.” His companion turned her head to look out the window. She too seemed surprised—and a little disappointed. “Oh, here we are. I do thank you, sir. It was kind of you to take me up and save me a few miles of walking.”
But he had not yet heard about the advantageous marriage. Besides, perhaps she was hungry. No, probably she was hungry. And besides again, only the very smallest of dents had yet been made in his massive boredom.
“Miss Gray,” he said, “will you give me the pleasure of your company at dinner?”
“Oh.” Her eyes grew larger, and he read unmistakable hunger in their depths. For a moment she was forgetting to act a part. “Oh, there is no need, sir. I can buy my own dinner. Though at the moment I am not hungry. I will walk to the next village before stopping, I believe. But thank you.”
“Miss Gray,” he said, “I will take you on to the next village. But first I must dine. I am hungry, you see. And if you are to sit and watch me eat, I shall be self-conscious. Do force yourself to take a bite with me.”
“Oh.” He knew suddenly for a certainty that she had not eaten that day and perhaps not yesterday either. It must have been yesterday, not today, that she had been tossed out of that other carriage. “You will take me one village farther? How kind of you. Very well, then. Perhaps I can eat just a little.” She laughed. “Though I did have rather a large breakfast.”
He raised his eyebrows as he vaulted from the carriage and handed her down the steps. He escorted her toward the private dining room that Hollander had already bespoken for his use. A gentleman and his ladybird. He read that interpretation in the eyes of the ostlers in the yard and in the eyes of the innkeeper when they went in and in those of the barmaid they passed inside.
Well, let them think what they would. Even gentlemen had to be amused at times. And even ladybirds suffered from hunger when they had been abandoned by their protectors and had not eaten for a day or longer.
2
HE WAS SORRY SHE HAD ACCEPTED THE INVITATION TO dine with him. She was sorry she had been tempted by his offer to take her just one town farther along her way. Her legs were shaking so badly by the time she stepped inside the private dining room he had bespoken—he must be very wealthy—that she wondered they still held her upright. Her hands shook so badly that she would not fo
r the moment try raising them in order to untie the ribbons of her bonnet.
She was so very accustomed to being invisible. Well, almost so anyway. It was true that the male guests Mr. Burnaby had brought to the house far too frequently for Mrs. Burnaby’s liking—he was a gentleman who enjoyed shooting and hunting and used them as an excuse for having company and carousing for days and nights on end—it was true that those guests sometimes noticed her. It was true too that she had sometimes had difficulty in shaking off their attentions. But on the whole she had crept about the house in her gray garments and been invisible to both the servants, of whom she had not been quite one, and the master and mistress of the house. Mrs. Burnaby had even insisted that she wear a cap in order to douse the one splash of color she might have carried about with her—her hair.
She was certainly not accustomed to being looked upon as if she were an actress—ironical that, really—or a wh—. But even in her mind she could not fully verbalize the word. Her hands developed pins and needles as well as the shakes. And yet that was exactly how everyone outside and inside the inn had just looked at her.
“Miss Gray,” the gentleman said from behind her in his characteristic voice of hauteur—and yet it was a light and pleasant voice, she thought—“do please take a seat and make yourself at home.”