Proud Mary

by Lucinda Brant

  “Has our ghost purloined anything else from the pantry?” Christopher speculated as he refilled his wine glass. “Or was this his first and only visit to the kitchen?”

  Teddy leaned forward and said with conspiratorial excitement, “It’s not the first time! A loaf of bread was stolen. Not a whole loaf. Only what was left over from dinner. Cook was going to use it to make bread pudding.”

  “Bread?” asked Mary, and found herself ignored by her daughter and the Squire, though he did throw her a look.

  “Anything else?” Christopher asked Teddy casually, sipping at his glass.

  “Two bottles of elderflower wine. Luke said it was one, but Jane is certain it’s two.”

  “Two bottles of elderflower wine?” Christopher repeated with awe and sat back. “Good!”

  Teddy frowned. “Good? Fau—” She quickly swallowed back the vulgar exclamation, a glance at her mother, adding, “But you don’t even like elderflower wine, Uncle Bryce.”

  “True. I hope the ghost takes all the elderflower wine. Better that than this fine Bordeaux we’re drinking.”

  Mary was suddenly ill at ease. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Bryce. I should have asked… I thought—with you here for dinner—you would not mind me taking the liberty of having a bottle fetched.”

  “It was not meant as a criticism, my lady,” Christopher stated quietly. “You may have wine with every meal, if that is your wish.”

  Teddy was curious. “Why must you ask Uncle Bryce’s permission, Mama? It’s our cellar.”

  Mary glanced at Christopher, then said,

  “No, Teddy, it’s not. Everything from the sugar spoon to the broom in the stables belongs to Sir Gerald’s heir, your cousin—Sir John Cavendish. I’ve spoken to you before about him—about Jack,” Lady Mary explained. “We live here with the permission of his guardian. And one day, when he is old enough to take on the management of Abbeywood, he will live here for part of the year, and no doubt the rest of the year in London.”

  “Can we stay here with Cousin Jack?”

  As Christopher was sipping his wine and made no effort to comment, Mary said, “I don’t believe he would want that, Teddy. He’ll bring his bride here, and I dare say by the time that day arrives, you’ll be married, too, so you’ll have a house of your own—”

  “But I don’t want to leave Abbeywood, ever. And I won’t,” Teddy stated flatly. “He can’t make me! This is my home, not his. Besides, where will you live, Mama?”

  “Me? Oh, I’ve not thought much about that, Teddy,” Mary responded lightly, and smiled. “We don’t need to worry yet. So many things can happen in a handful of years.”

  It was an untruth. She had thought of little else in her widowhood. But this was not the time or place to discuss her future, or her daughter’s. So she was annoyed when Christopher made a blunt observation, and even more surprised by her daughter’s response.

  “Your mother is correct, Teddy. But if you reach the grand old age of one-and-twenty and remain unmarried, which I doubt, and Sir John has taken up residence here, I’m sure your Uncle Dair would welcome you at Fitzstuart Hall, if you wished to live there. Isn’t that so, my lady?”

  Teddy screwed up her mouth, freckled nose twitching in thought. And then she shook her head. “No. I don’t want to live with Uncle Dair. I love him, but I want to stay here. Who would look after my chickens? And there is no Puzzlewood at Fitzstuart Hall. And you and mama let me ride everywhere. And what about Lorenzo, and you, Uncle Bryce, and Kate and Carlo and Silvia? How would I visit you all from so far away? No. I will stay here because it is the best place in the whole of England, isn’t it, Uncle Bryce?”

  “Yes… in the whole world,” Christopher replied gently.

  Mary smiled at Teddy, not at all surprised by her daughter’s vehement championing of this picturesque pocket of England. She had fallen in love with the Cotswolds from the carriage window as a bride, catching glimpses of the patchwork of green rolling hills dotted with pockets of woodland and honey stone cottages clinging to the slopes. Sir Gerald had his driver take them through the local village, the inhabitants lined up outside their cottages on a hilly crooked lane, bobbing a curtsy or removing their hats, all eager to get a glimpse of their master’s young wife.

  “Yes. It is an idyll—even in the depths of winter. There isn’t a more welcoming place in the kingdom I’d wish to be with you, Teddy. But you need not concern yourself about leaving here for many, many years,” Mary assured her. “And even if you were to leave, even for a little while, say to go to school, you could return. Just as you do when you visit with Granny at Cheltenham. Mr. Bryce spent his childhood and youth here, just as you are doing, and then he went away for a time, but returned. Is that not so, Mr. Bryce?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  Teddy was unconvinced.

  “Uncle Bryce came back because he could. He’s a boy and his father left him Brycecomb. Girls don’t inherit houses. Sir Gerald left us nothing but a great pile of debts. Granny said so. She said we are burdens, that girls are nothing but burdens on their male relatives.”

  Mary knew with depressing certainty her mother had expressed these opinions. She had heard them often enough. The Countess of Strathsay had been devastated when Mary, her firstborn, was not the son and heir the Earl of Strathsay needed, and she never let Mary forget her disappointment. For Mary, Teddy’s birth was a blessing and compensation for a loveless marriage. Not for Teddy the hours she had spent sitting in stiff fabric and whale bone, a book balanced on her head to keep her spine and shoulders straight, no thought to her health or happiness.

  Mary was determined Teddy’s childhood would be different. So if climbing trees and riding astride and being outdoors all day made Teddy happy, then she, as her mother, would do her best to see that she could do those things. And the best place to do this was here, tucked away in the wilds of the Cotswolds, where they had few neighbors and fewer visitors, and no one could ridicule her for her mothering, or her daughter for being herself.

  And now here was Teddy, slumped in her chair, as much as it was possible to slump in a boned corset, and with an expression of foreboding, so very different from the happy child she’d been while talking of a thieving ghost in the pantry, and all because her granny had unsettled her with talk of being made to leave Abbeywood. For the first time since she had dared mention the existence of a haunting, Mary wished the ghost would appear then and there to distract Teddy from needless worry.

  The Squire seemed to have read her mind, because he eventually managed to steer the conversation back to the ghost, but not before offering Teddy reassurances of his own.

  “Your father made me your legal guardian, Teddy. That means you cannot be taken from here without my permission. And your granny, or your cousin Jack, or your Uncle Dair cannot make me do what you don’t want me to do. Does that make you feel better?”

  Teddy nodded, but she did not appear completely convinced.

  “Can Mama stay here, too?”

  “Of course.”

  “Granny says when Mama finds a new husband, he will make her leave here.”

  Mary swallowed, not a look in Christopher’s direction, made uneasy by such a question put to him, and in front of her. But she did not want to further unsettle her daughter with talk of leaving the only home she had known, so she said as casually as she could, hoping she sounded light-hearted,

  “Dear me, Granny certainly had a bee buzzing near her ear when we last saw her, did she not?”

  Teddy leaned in and said confidentially to Christopher, “Uncle Dair says that all the time about Granny.” Then she settled against the chair back once more and said to her mother, “Granny told Uncle Dair you can’t go on being a burden—and then told him to stop wearing the carpet to threads with his pacing. But he said that as the carpet belonged to him, he could walk it to threads if he wished. And then he took me riding, which put him in a better mood.”

  Mary extended her hand to her daughter, and when she pla
ced her fingers in hers gave them a gentle squeeze.

  “Teddy, Granny says the things she does because she worries about us, and wants everything to be just so. But sometimes—most of the time—when something or someone doesn’t do what she expects, she becomes disagreeable. Particularly when her mind lacks occupation. Do you understand?”

  “I think—think so… Granny has nothing better to do with her time than to fret and fuss over things that don’t concern her, so Uncle Dair says.”

  “Yes. Yes, that’s right.”

  “So you don’t have to find a new husband?” she added eagerly.

  Mary suppressed a sigh and smiled, picking up her wine glass and taking a sip so she could formulate a response. Ironically, in this case her mother was right. The Countess had badgered her from Buckinghamshire to Hampshire. Shut up in a carriage was the perfect place, and the journey to Dair’s wedding the perfect opportunity, for her mother to give a lecture on duty, and tell her to stop being selfish and think of the family, and their good name, and Teddy’s future. It was imperative she remarried. Two years in the wilds of Gloucestershire was time enough to mourn. And Mary was no longer a girl. Soon whatever beauty she possessed would fade altogether and no man would want her.

  The Countess suggested that perhaps an older man who already had grown children would offer for her. And if she was exceedingly fortunate her new husband would be incapable of mounting her and merely want a companion for his old age. But this her mother doubted. Men were beasts, their carnal appetites fit only for…

  Mary had stopped listening, though she resisted the urge to stare out at the scenery and kept her gaze firmly on her mother’s tired features. For the hundredth, if not the thousandth time, she wondered what had possessed her father to marry such a bigoted creature. But her mother was right in one respect. She needed to do her duty to her family and to Teddy, and remarry. She knew she would only have to ask for Roxton’s help and he would find her any number of possible bridegrooms for her consideration. She might be penniless, but she was still the daughter of an earl and the great-granddaughter of Charles the Second. And to the nobility, lineage counted for everything.

  “Perhaps Jack won’t want to come and live here, now we have a resident ghost?” Christopher suggested to lighten the mood and break the silence, gaze firmly on Teddy. He had not looked Mary’s way since the girl had mentioned her mother needed to marry. “Particularly one intent on ransacking the pantry. Let’s see…What has our incorporeal friend managed to take so far. Tell me if I leave anything off the list: Strawberry jam, walnut pickle, a jar of lemon marmalade, the remains of a loaf of bread, and two bottles of elderflower wine.” When Teddy nodded he had listed all the items correctly, he added with satisfaction, “I’d say that’s the beginnings of a feast, perhaps a picnic.” He leaned in, a look left, then right, and whispered loudly, “Do you think this ghost will invite us to this picnic if we brought a wheel of Abbeywood’s cheese and some cold cuts?”

  Teddy hunched her shoulders, grinning and nodding vigorously.

  “I suppose you would also like us to supply plates, knives, and napkins, too, Mr. Bryce?” Mary asked with a small smile, coming out of her abstraction and happy to join in a conversation which had once more turned to the absurd.

  “Can we, Mama? And have a basket to put it all in!”

  “A capital idea, Teddy,” Christopher agreed, then added—the words out of his mouth before he’d given them careful consideration, “It’s evident you have inherited not only your mother’s autumnal loveliness, but also her generosity of spirit.”

  There followed a heavy pause in the conversation when nothing was said because too much had been said. It made for an awkward silence between the adults. Christopher’s throat burned. Mary drew in breath, face inexplicably warm. Both made a conscious effort not to look at the other, and yet were more acutely aware of the other’s presence than ever before. And both realized that something momentous had just occurred that could not now be ignored or undone.

  FOUR

  AUTUMNAL LOVELINESS…? From where had those feeble words sprung? And why those words? Could he not, after all these years, have chosen better? How had he allowed himself to be so unguarded—to blab like a Blue Coat schoolboy? He who had always been circumspect in her presence, sometimes to the point where it was best not to speak at all. Like the first time he had seen her. It was autumn, as it was now. The leaves had turned. No longer shades of green, they were vibrant yellows, oranges, and deep reds. Some had fallen. Others clung on, the pockets of forest dotted with fiery flashes against the fading light. He’d kept a dark red leaf from that day, because it was the same color as her glorious hair. He’d pressed it between the pages of the Bryce family Bible.

  Sir Gerald had invited him to Abbeywood several months after his return from the Continent. Kate had just arrived and was knee deep in packing straw. But she would never have accompanied him had she, too, been invited. In truth, Kate would never again leave the safety and anonymity of Brycecomb Hall. And there, waiting in the Abbeywood Farm hall to greet him was the Lady Mary, hair dressed as it was now: One thick braid wound close to her head like a hair band, the rest coiled into netting at her nape.

  He remembered that as he walked across the flagstones to greet her, his breathing slowed and the beat of his heart drummed in his ears, drowning out Sir Gerald’s effusive introductions. And if her redheaded beauty affected his breathing and quickened his heart, her violet-blue eyes—the color of the wild harebell—caused him to forget his manners and stare openly. Later, thinking back on that moment, it was not so much their unusual color, but the way in which they darkened upon meeting him. That look, their silent exchange, lasted a few brief seconds, but he knew in that moment, as surely as he knew his name, that the Lady Mary Cavendish and he had made a lasting connection.

  Neither had spoken of that first meeting since. It was as if it had never happened, and given the gulf in their disparate circumstances, that was for the best. She was the great-granddaughter of a Stuart king, and cousin once removed of the Duke of Roxton. He was a Cotswold squire with a past so base that had Sir Gerald an inkling of it, he would never have allowed Christopher into his house, least of all make his bow to the Lady Mary. All other considerations aside, there was the insurmountable fact she was married.

  Yet, that first meeting, and the feelings it had awakened, remained just below the surface of their daily interactions: Suppressed. Simmering. Unsanctioned. Unforgettable. Undeniable. And now this…

  HOW DARE HE make such a personal declaration. He had no right. He had placed her in an awkwardly embarrassing position. He was acting as the estate’s steward, thus he was a servant, one rung above a housekeeper. And when he was not being steward, he was a simple squire of a small holding in the next vale. And when he wasn’t farming, he was engaged in trade—a mill owner no less. What Christopher Bryce would never be was her social equal. The societal divide between them was so wide he might as well be on one side of the Atlantic and she on the other, and never the two should meet.

  Society might accept into their ranks the daughter of a squire or a merchant if she married up into the nobility (though that would not stop the sniggers behind the poor girl’s back), but it did not apply in the reverse. Daughters of the nobility did not marry down. That caused the type of scandal from which a female never made a recover, nor was her family ever able to remove the stain. Such base marriages were not unknown. There had been instances of elopements and clandestine matches, but such couplings caused scandal, heartache, and banishment. These wayward daughters of noblemen became the pariahs of their class. They might as well have leprosy. For Mary, such a match was unthinkable.

  Mary’s mother considered it enough of a humiliation Christopher Bryce held her daughter’s day-to-day living accountable to him, but for Sir Gerald to leave his only child, her granddaughter, the daughter of a lady, in the guardianship of such a man—that was a disgrace. And the yokel had the effrontery to deny a duke—R
oxton no less—access to his own niece. Who did the upstart think he was?

  Whipped up into an emotional frenzy by her mother’s constant berating and her Roxton cousins’ opposition to a stranger having the care of Teddy, Mary had agreed with them. She publically denounced Christopher, calling him a fiend and a brute. In front of her mother, her brother, the Duke of Roxton, and her cousin the Duchess of Kinross, she accused him of being uncompromisingly stubborn, cold-hearted, and high-handed. He kept her daughter a prisoner at Abbeywood, and by virtue of her being Teddy’s mother, kept her prisoner, too. She couldn’t wait for Teddy to turn one-and-twenty. Or better still, to marry earlier, so that Mr. Christopher Bryce’s guardianship would be at an end. And when Jack was of age, he would appoint a more fitting person to act as steward, and Mr. Bryce would return to his vale and his estate and remain there, no longer with any need to have anything to do with them or her, or with Abbeywood.

  When she was calmer and away from her mother’s malicious influence, away from her Roxton cousins—who were all so arrogantly self-assured of their place in the world—and she had returned to the tranquility of the vale with only her daughter for company, she regretted her outburst. Her accusations against Mr. Bryce were emotionally charged rants she wished she had never uttered.