An Untitled Lady: A Novel

by Nicky Penttila

  Deacon laughed. “I should hope not, if Wetherby’s their master. The countryside entire will be a’wenching, without the benefit of Maypole Day. Still, the girl is beautiful. I’m surprised you gave her up.”

  “Quite the anomaly, a rose born among the mandrakes. But then, there are plenty of pretty girls, even among the low folk. The old man told me to forget her, and I did obey.”

  “Everyone obeyed the old earl.”

  “Except Nash,” Deacon said, and then pursed his lips, as if he would take the words back. Instead, he plunged on. “Did you get me a gift?”

  “You want another silk suit?” This time his brother’s eyes laughed with him.

  “Something far more precious. Your time.” Deacon mustered up his lost-little-boy voice. “Stay on a day and help with the accounts? You’re so good at it.”

  Nash’s mood dropped on the words “stay on” and sank into shadow on the word “accounts.” He was not his brother’s keeper, nor his lackey. “Do your own accounts or remedy this problem with Miss Wetherby. I don’t have time for both.” He didn’t have time for either, in fact.

  “What problem? Just toss her out.” Wetherby waved his drooping hand as if shooing a dog out of the room.

  “As her own family did?” Nash could not let it go. “She’s a Wetherby, yet precious little blunt is settled on her. If Deacon doesn’t claim her—”

  “And I don’t.” Deacon pushed out his glass for Wetherby to refill it.

  “Then she has no family to go to.”

  “She can stay in the hovel that sprouted her.” Wetherby slammed the decanter onto the table.

  “Enough.” Heywood rose to his feet, stamping the cigar out on the plate as if it were an asp’s head. “She was raised a gentleman’s daughter, and that is what she remains.”

  “In the eyes of the law, perhaps,” Wetherby said. “But what will happen when all the society mamas hear of her lineage? I don’t see them lining up their precious little boys to match with that pedigree.”

  “Whoever would loose that rumor? Surely not us.” Deacon loved gossip, but hated being the subject of it.

  Wetherby chuckled. “Who could ever keep such a juicy item to himself? I’ll wager it already has traveled two or three miles down the road just since the cheese course.”

  Heywood’s jaw worked silently, as if it were arguing in pantomime. Finally, he gave a short nod. “It’s late. I’ll leave you to it.”

  Nash pushed back his chair as if to leave as well. But he paused, thinking. “If that’s the case, then we should settle something on her right away. Before her reputation is ruined.”

  Deacon raised his hands. “I’m not marrying her, no matter what those letters may say. The last thing I need now is the nagging burden of a wife.”

  Wetherby tipped his head up to catch a last sip of brandy. “How about this? You call for another bottle and I’ll take the girl. She’s our family’s scandal; I don’t see why you should worry in the least about it. I’ll see she gets all she deserves.”

  Deacon seemed to consider it. “A nice farm, perhaps. A landowner, of course. Though she’d make a lovely milkmaid.”

  “No.” Nash’s ears were pounding. “We’ll take care of it. Our father set up a plan, and if we don’t follow it—”

  “Which we won’t,” Deacon cut in.

  “We will find another way.”

  Wetherby shrugged, as if he couldn’t care less. But Nash saw a predatory gleam in the man’s eye. “As you wish. But I’d advise a tight leash. You know how those country women can be.”

  “Wetherby.” Deacon sounded seriously tired of this topic.

  “I mean, really, even when she was that angelic four-year-old you said you loved, remember that? She needed to find out who was the true leader of the pack.”

  “And how did you do that?” Nash snapped, his temper fighting at its leash.

  “How do you train any puppy?”

  { 6 }

  Nash wasted no time following Heywood out the door. The mystery of Madeline Wetherby lay in wait for him in the library.

  She certainly hadn’t wanted to give up those letters. She’d handed them over peaceably enough, but when he gave them to Emmett, he’d thought she would chase the poor man down and grab them back. But she remained a lady, instead chasing them only with her gaze.

  Spreading them across the desk, Nash combined the correspondence into order by date, a regular back and forth every six months for fifteen years. Arrayed down the length of the table and back again, it amounted to thousands of words. His father had probably spent more words on this stranger than he had on his own son. Second son.

  Nash swallowed the iron tang of his jealousy, and it soon gave way to curiosity. It was not her fault his father never spoke to Nash, but what hold did she have on him that he did speak—and write—to her? Something in their exchange that would explain why the old earl, who held himself aloof even from his family, had maintained a strong bond with a young girl from the neighborhood who wasn’t even who people said she was. Why his father, who would not deign to speak to strangers, had adopted one, in the eyes of the church.

  “Start from the front or the back?”

  Nash’s head snapped toward the open passage from the library, where Deacon grinned at him. His big brother had always walked like a cat, insinuating himself into a room. Nash expected Deacon found it harder nowadays, with everyone’s eyes out for the new earl.

  “Is it wise to leave Wetherby alone with the help?”

  “He prefers it. Doesn’t like me to poach. And wenching in one’s own garden feels a tad incestuous to me.” He shuddered, but delicately, as only Deacon could.

  “You trade gardens, then?”

  “I tried. But Wetherby’s pile doesn’t attract the pretties. Speaking of lovelies, how do you find the resurrected Miss Wetherby? Good length of limb and fine face, but pushy. Trying too hard.” He drifted over to the desk.

  “A fine caricature, but more important is whether she speaks true. The front.” Nash scooped up half the letters, the earlier ones, and pushed them toward his bother. Deacon took the first of the stack, Nash the last of the later stack.

  From Miss Wetherby to poor Perkins, it confirmed her intention to arrive at the castle yesterday. So she hadn’t lied about that. The letter was dated a few weeks after the old earl’s death. An earlier card from her regretted that death, calling the old sod “a great gentleman and the finest friend a lady could hope for.”

  “She’s adorable. ‘Thank you much for placing me here. Miss Marsden is so strict—strict is crossed out and replaced with kind—I know I will work hard here.’”

  Nash looked up from his father’s final letter. “He’s parroting himself. ‘Deacon is to marry at twenty-five, and sire a child at twenty-eight. Three years should be plenty for you both.’”

  “Bully. I like him better here: ‘You are not to worry about what happened at home. Of course, you may feel sad from time to time. But you will always remain the strong, cheerful girl I know you are inside.’”

  Nash leaned back in the chair, now rather enjoying its swivel. “What did he know of how we were inside?”

  Deacon glanced up at him as he was pulling another letter open. “He wrote all of us. Everyone else at college received letters from their mamas, but I got them from him. Quite the coup, even among the heirs. And he wrote to Mama, too, whenever he traveled or stayed in London for long.”

  Nash’s stomach ballooned with bile. “He never wrote to me.”

  Deacon measured him with a glance, uncovering his pain in a moment. Then he shrugged, as if he hadn’t just seen into his brother’s twisted soul.

  “He wrote you by proxy. Look again. Navy seal.”

  The ones he’d seen earlier. He took them up, the paper nearly cardboard. Quarterly updates on Lieutenant Nash Quinn, from his first voluntary impressment through his discharge from the Nisus as acting captain.

  Nash read through his own history as recorded in the crampe
d hand of a Navy secretary. His medal for valor, his near court-martial, and a complete listing of all prize-money earned. The conniver had known all this, and not said a word.

  He slapped the chair arm. His father had known how he had proved himself over and over, even learning that damned algebra to graduate to officer. And not a word of praise, not a word of understanding, not even a word of welcome home when Nash had returned a decade later. But then he’d known his son was coming home. The Navy had told him the month before.

  The old man also had known that Nash didn’t need the family’s stipend, didn’t need to show up at the castle once a quarter and grovel to obtain it. Yet he’d played along with Nash’s pretense, which let him see Mama and yet remain at odds with his father.

  Only his father had not been at odds with him.

  His eyes stung, and he blinked rapidly. Deacon chuckled. The bastard had been watching the changes on Nash’s face the whole time. Nash pinched the space between his eyes, as if it was his head that ached.

  “You had to like the man, in his correspondence. In the flesh, well, wasn’t that another story.” Deacon unfolded another letter.

  “The girl enjoys English and French classes, but finds figures a bore. And did you know a cold could cause one’s spelling to suffer, at least as recorded on the quarterly test. But nothing about friends, and nothing about coming home for holidays. That’s all I ever wrote about. That and for another advance.”

  Nash returned his attention to the Wetherby letters. “He may have been the sweet patron when she was a babe, but he’s up to his old tricks later. A commandment to learn about sheep and dairy. And corn blight, lord help her. And here he’s telling her to learn to keep books ‘as if you were in trade.’ Not ladylike at all.”

  “But undeniably useful. Little Maddie goes on and on about how she wants to be useful, especially to the Quinns. The perfect serf.” Deacon’s brow drew down, and he quickly reached for the next letter.

  “Find something?”

  “Nothing good. Shaftsbury paid for a good family to take her in one winter’s holiday. Friend of the girl’s.”

  “He bought her a friend?”

  “Wasn’t she the ugly duckling? Here she gushes at the experience; it’s full half the next letter. I feel like blubbering.”

  The event was not repeated, that Nash could tell. His heart hurt at the image of a little girl, alone with the help in mid-winter, and all summer long. Small wonder she had to be reprimanded for spending too much time with the help. Small wonder she hired herself out as a tutor as soon as she turned sixteen.

  Madeline Wetherby had been earning her own keep for the past few years, though she had spent half of it on the specialized coursework his father had recommended.

  According to her teachers, she was an apt pupil, a quiet girl, eager to please. They said nothing about her dreams or her fears; they seemed not to know her at all.

  Were all women raised to be such blank slates? Madeline had reacted so badly to Deacon’s refusal, and said it was because she had trained herself to fit with only him. He should remind her how apt a pupil she was. Surely she could fit herself to any man. Perhaps she’d suit a tradesman in town.

  But the idea left a sour taste in his mouth. Shaftsbury had offered his heir, and here they now sat contemplating foisting her off on a soap maker or manufactory man.

  “Here we go.” Deacon waved a letter in his father’s handwriting. “It was you who were the intended spouse. Until you up and deserted us. ‘Nash has a good head on his shoulders, for all that.’ I’ll spare you the earlier part; we’re none of us without faults, especially at eleven or twelve. Seems the old dear expected to find you a living, and make her a rector’s wife. Or perhaps an advocate, like Mr. Heywood. But he prefers the church. A good living—he underlines it.”

  “Wonder how long it took him to give up that dream?”

  “Who says he ever did? You’d make a stellar Reverend Honorable. You have the sanctimonious prose down already. You were ever holier than thou.”

  “And you the unrepentant sinner. He’s promised you to her these past ten years.”

  “So unfortunate that you were ‘lost to the sea,’ as he so poetically puts it. That could have solved all this trouble.”

  “By laying it on my doorstep.”

  “You always were the responsible one. But it’s I who have all the responsibilities now.”

  Deacon swept the letters into his arms, snatching one out of Nash’s hand. He turned toward the fireplace, embers only but still hot.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “It solves the problem.” He waved a letter over the embers, which caught up a glow again.

  For a moment, Nash sat frozen. Even with this correspondence, Deacon could still argue against the match, especially on grounds of false promises. They could pay Miss Wetherby for her silence. It was the easiest solution.

  But it wasn’t right.

  The old earl had made a family promise, in writing, and repeated it. Should the letter disappear, Miss Wetherby’s legal standing would weaken. But she could call on her teacher, on Perkins, and perhaps others, who would argue in her favor.

  But she would need funds for that. And the Wetherbys had left her nothing, the earl, pitifully little. Because he’d offered something more.

  Now Nash understood why she was so agitated at handing her letters over. The Quinns might not be trustworthy.

  Deacon let the letter float onto the embers. It caught, an orange blaze. He let go another.

  “Don’t!” Before Nash could push his legs around the desk, Deacon had sacrificed more than half to the flame. Nash wrenched the rest away from him.

  “You have a better idea? I thought not.” He grabbed them, pulling Nash’s hands toward the flames as well. Nash was forced to let go. The paper caught, and flamed high.

  “Damn it, Deacon, I gave my word.”

  “What of it? I never gave mine.”

  “Idiot. That doesn’t change anything.”

  Deacon clapped his hands as if brushing away soot—or a young woman’s dreams. “Now let’s see what mettle she’s made of.”

  { 7 }

  After a quick course through the close shrubbery, Nash decided that wild hair and wet cuffs were perfectly adequate for an early morning breakfast table. But as he strode into the small dining room, he immediately regretted his carelessness.

  Miss Wetherby jumped up from her chair, spoon still clutched in her hand. He couldn’t go forward, as that would be rude, but he couldn’t retreat, as that would be ruder still. She saved him in that way women do—with conversation.

  “A fine morning for a ride, Mr. Quinn.”

  Magically released from his invisible bonds, he surged into the room. It had once been a type of greenhouse, until some ancestor had allowed vines to cover all the windows. It still received plenty of light, but of a greenish cast guaranteed to make even the most hale of visitors look sickly.

  It certainly paid no compliment to its current occupant. Her dark-blond hair had gone drab, her rather pretty face waxen. It did inflect the green in her eyes with something, not fire exactly, but the light cast even darker shadows on the bags under her eyes.

  “I apologize for my state of undress, Miss Wetherby.”

  “I thank you, but there’s no need. I understand habits in country houses are different.”

  “I am no slothful part of the landed class, I assure you.” He called for coffee and toast with egg, as she was having, and sat opposite her. This table was a petite version of the giant banqueting monstrosity; it seated only twelve. She had taken a spot on the bench along the side, leaving the ends for the hosts.

  “I apologize for implying so.”

  Nash sipped his blazingly hot coffee. “Apology accepted. So neither of us has slept.”

  She stirred her cocoa, avoiding his gaze. “A lot to think about.”

  He could well imagine. Yesterday, she had been a Wetherby, today she was not, some would surely say. Di
d that change anything? Not in his mind. She had been raised a lady and she behaved like one. A lady without a title. And a bit too high in the instep for him—seven trunks, by god—but fair enough for her station in life.

  But what was her level? Was it the station she deserved, though she had not the blunt to pay for it? Or was it the station she had been born to, apparently a tenant’s cottage somewhere in Lancashire?

  “Might I ask you a question?” he said. “You needn’t answer.”

  She raised her moss-eyed gaze to his, and waited.

  “I know you are not well set up, in terms of funds, yet you have nearly as many traveling trunks as Mama.” He trailed off, shrugging.

  “Why do I have so many clothes?” He instantly felt an idiot for asking. She was a woman—would she not spend all her pin money on raiment?

  She touched the collar of her silk dress, a darker gray than yesterday’s version. “It’s your father’s doing. He allowed me five new outfits a year, and as I stopped growing quite a while ago, they have added up.”

  “Fifteen years times five is 75 dresses.” Far more than seven trunks.

  “They weren’t all at once, of course. And it was a good idea, when I was growing like a weed. I’d get two in winter and three in summer. There were always girls who didn’t have enough, so when I stopped growing I would take one of them with me to share the bounty. Your father was a generous man.” A small smile stole onto her too-wide lips at the memory.

  Nash restrained a scowl. He had no such illusions of the man. But he shouldn’t begrudge her hers.

  “I suppose I will sell them,” she said. “But in Manchester, no one will buy my cloth, will they?”

  “You believe we will cast you out?”

  She said nothing. The shadows along her jaw deepened. She was clenching it tight enough to break teeth.

  His hand ached to brush the side of her face, smooth away her worries with a stroke. But he could think of no force to bring on his brother that would lead him to accept this lady as his wife. She wouldn’t be happy with the likes of him, either, no matter that their bodies looked as if they would fit lock and key. Deacon lived on the surface, happy enough. This Miss Wetherby had depths Deacon wouldn’t even know to look for.