by Bliss Bennet
If only he’d allow her to do the same for him. For them both, really, if she were being honest with herself. A stolen kiss, no matter how brief, would be heaven.
She took a step closer, tilting her face expectantly towards his.
“Now, don’t you look at me like that, Harriot Atherton, all rumpled and flushed and tempting,” he begged, raising his hands and backing away. “You know I won’t kiss you again, not unless I can tell my family we’re betrothed.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed. No matter how many times she insisted it would be not do to announce an engagement in the midst of a contested election, especially an engagement likely to lead to condemnation rather than praise from his peers, he was proving surprisingly obstinate on this ridiculous point of decorum.
But he wasn’t the only one who could be determined.
Feeling reckless, she took a step closer and placed her palms against the wool of his coat.“Not even a tiny, brief buss?”
His eyes widened and he swallowed, once, then again, his breath quickening beneath her hands. But then his lips firmed, and he shook his head. “No. Not even a peck on the cheek. For I’m a rake, you know, and couldn’t promise to stop.”
She laughed as she slid a hand beneath his neckcloth and stroked her fingertips over the fine linen of his shirt. “And if I didn’t want you to? Stop, that is.”
He closed his eyes as a tight, strangled sound escaped his throat. “Harry, I’m trying to have a care for your reputation. Can you please not do the same?”
“Must I?” Her fingers found the placket of his shirt and slipped inside to skim against his collarbone.
“Yes,” he groaned. But her breath caught with hope as he allowed her fingertips to wander.
But then his hand tightened around hers and pulled. “Yes, you must. Unless you’re prepared to walk to the rectory and ask Mr. Strickland to read the banns.”
“Read the banns? Who is foolish enough to trade freedom for the dubious pleasures of a leg-shackle?”
Harry jerked away from Theo at the sound of Lord Dulcie’s voice, ripe with intrusive curiosity. Have a care for her reputation indeed. If the gossip-mad lord had come upon them only a moment earlier, a visit with Stickler Strickland could hardly be avoided.
“Why, for two of my tenants,” Theo said, stepping in front of her, shielding her from Dulcie’s inquisitive stare. “Have you met Farmer Croft and his Daisy?”
She choked back a sudden snort of laughter. Daisy was the name not of Will Croft’s beloved, but of his prized sheep dog.
But Lord Dulcie only raised his quizzing glass with a frown. “Your sister sends you up here to bring Miss Atherton down as soon as possible, and instead you dally to discuss the domestic concerns of a shepherdess and her swain? Have you forgotten there is an election to be won? Come, Miss Atherton, leave this lazy fellow to his own business. We have an emergency on our hands, and only you can help.”
“Whatever is the matter?” she asked as Dulcie pulled her toward the staircase. At least Lady Sayre seemed to need her.
Lord Dulcie placed her hand on his arm and guided her down the steps, Theo trailing in their wake. “Sibilla has been asking for you since sunrise, my dear. It seems during their trip to Gainsborough yesterday she and Per were given a different poll list, one that includes far more electors on it than the one from which they have been working. Quel catastrophe! She needs you immediately, to tell her which men still reside in the county and which control votes in need of courting.”
“I’ll be happy to help.” As I would have been happy to help you, if only you’d given me the chance, the eyes she cut over her shoulder at Theo taunted. But he only raised his eyebrows, as if to say, You know right well what you have to do to win that chance…
Theo’s two siblings and Sir Peregrine all rose as they entered the library. Lady Sayre strode over to wave a booklet in Harry’s face.
“Fifty more names. Fifty! How could that agent’s original polling list have been so wrong? You must tell us, Miss Atherton, which voters still live in the district. I have marked each one missing from our first list with a check mark.”
Harry took the booklet and flipped through the columns of names. “Mr. Cottingham no longer owns Cherry Farm, so you may remove him from your list. And Mr. Charles Sunley, in Newton-on-Toft, died last year, and has been succeeded by his son, Mr. John Sunley.”
Sir Peregrine came to stand beside her. “Thank you, Miss Atherton. I knew we could depend on you.”
“But I am not familiar with every family in the district,” she warned, even as the baronet’s praise sent a blush of pleasure to her cheeks. “Have you asked Theo—”
“Excuse me, my lord.” Parsons, his livery still damp from where the porridge had hit, held out a silver salver. “A letter just arrived for you. Express.”
Theo broke the wax seal and scanned the note’s contents. With a vicious curse, he handed it to Sir Peregrine, then began to pace the length of the room.
Lady Sayre’s gaze shot between her brother and her husband. “What is is, Theo? Per?”
“I’m afraid we have more to worry about than a few overlooked voters, Sib,” Sir Peregrine answered, handing the letter to her. “The ever-equivocating Mr. Norton has broken his promise to your brother. For he finds he cannot allow a ‘seditious demagogue’ such as myself to stand unopposed.”
“Demagogue?” Benedict shook his head. “I’d be surprised if the fellow even knew what the word means.”
“It’s the seditious part that irks me.” Lord Dulcie snorted. “Why, I’d be as like to swim the Channel in nothing but my smalls as Per would be to do anything so ill-bred as fomenting rebellion.”
Though she would hardly have put it in such colorful language, Harry sincerely agreed. Oh, she’d been taken aback, at least at first, when Sir Peregrine began to explain the electoral reforms he hoped to help bring about if he were elected to Parliament. But the more she came to know Theo’s calm, thoughtful brother-in-law, the more her faith grew in him, and in his plans for gradual, peaceful political change. How dare Mr. Norton cast such unkind aspersions against him!
“‘As your object is to bring into contempt the Sovereign, the Clergy, and all the noble, moral, and worthy part of society, I fear I cannot allow you to stand unopposed. My son, therefore, will contest this election, with my full support,’” Lady Sayre read aloud, then tossed the offending paper on the desk. “Well, we won’t let a man who spouts such drivel to best us. Now, Per, do you see the wisdom of employing more agents to canvass each town?”
Her husband ran a hand through his dark hair. “But Sib, the expense—”
“Hang the expense. I’m not as proficient with accounting as is Miss Atherton, but even I know that my dowry is large enough to pay for what we need.”
Sir Peregrine shot a worried glance towards Theo before turning back to his wife. Had Theo told him that the dowry money had gone missing?
“You dowry will be kept for our children.”
“I had thought,” Lord Dulcie interrupted, sprawling against the desk, “that a man’s patron discharged all debts incurred during an election. At least, that is how my father always conducted the affair.”
“I will take responsibility for any additional expenses,” Theo said, his lips thinning. “It was I, after all, who assured Per that the seat would not be contested. Why, I’d never be invited to another dinner if word got about that I forced my brother-in-law into penury. Now go, Sib, and hire all the canvassers and whoever else you require.”
His sister rushed over and embraced him. “You are the best of brothers, Theo, no matter what father may have—” She stepped back, biting her lip. “No matter what anyone might say. The very best, Theo.”
“Do not let Benedict or Kit hear you say such a blasphemous thing. Now, off with you, before Mr. Norton and his son have a chance to spread disloyalty and disaffection like dung across the fields.”
Theo’s smile did not quite reach his eyes, but his sister did not
seem to notice. “Wait until you see the cards we’re having printed, to leave behind if a voter is not at home!” she crowed before pulling her husband from the room.
Harry clutched at the back of a chair. Printed broadsheets and cards, food and board while traveling about the county to solicit votes, distributing favors to electors to sway them to their side—how much had Sir Peregrine already laid out on this election? And how much more would Theo have to spend, now that he definitely had an opponent?
Most importantly, how disappointed would Theo’s family be when they discovered that Saybrook lands would soon be mortgaged in order to pay for it all?
“To bring in a fellow who knows nothing about your land, nothing about your people, when Haviland is here, right to hand? How can you have such little respect for my son, Saybrook?”
Theo grimaced, wishing he had given the idea more thought before rushing over to Sir John Mather’s. But the air in Saybrook House had become thick with anxiety and worry, and he’d been desperate to breathe free.
Instead, he’d just run into another mess.
He shifted in his seat. “Sir John, you must know I meant no offense.” Was his memory deceiving him, or had the chairs in the Mather library not been far more comfortable the last time he had visited?
“No offense?” Sir John’s ruddy face grew even more flushed. “By seeking for a new land agent among strangers, instead of offering the position to Haviland?”
“I assumed, sir, you would be offended if I approached your son about it. A steward does not just sit in his office, you know. He must interact with the tenantry, far more often than does a solicitor with his clients.” If his son’s work as a solicitor made the man querulous, how much more so would the idea of Haviland mucking about with the sheep and the dirt?
But Sir John just waved a careless hand. “You should hire a bailiff to tend to the more menial tasks. Haviland would take care of the books, and all the legal matters. Just as he does for me.”
A plague upon the fellow. Didn’t Theo already have Harry to see to the finances? And now, just to avoid offending his neighbor, he was to employ not one, but two more men to do the job Atherton had once done alone?
How soon could he leave? Theo glanced toward the mantel where Lady Mather’s favorite Messien clock had once held pride of place. But now nothing but dust graced the worn marble.
“Still, sir, the heir to his own estate, overseeing the workings of another? Not quite the thing, is it, now?”
“More the thing than to oust a man from his elected office and set up a radical to take his seat,” Sir John snapped. “Your father never misused his patronage so. Now if you will excuse me, I have an appointment with Mr. Norton for which I must prepare.”
Theo sprang from his chair. “Norton! You welcome that Tory changecoat here? Do you know he’s setting up his son to challenge to Sir Peregrine?”
Sir John did not even have the decency to look abashed. “The Mathers pride ourselves on our Whiggish ways. But I will not turn away an old friend, no matter his political views. Now, I bid you good-day, my lord.”
Theo grabbed his hat and cane from the stooping footman waiting in the front hall, wishing he might slam John Mather’s heavy, unpolished door behind him. But the elderly retainer pulled it closed with the softest of snicks.
Theo stomped through the fields, whipping his cane at the hapless wildflowers. What had he imagined would happen once he allowed himself to be drawn into his family’s affairs? That somehow, his deficiencies would magically disappear?
Corkbrained, it was, thinking that just because Harry was on his side, he wouldn’t muck up everything he touched.
But muck everything up he had, and in far more disastrous ways than he’d ever done before. Not persuading Norton to keep his damned nose out of the Parliament race. Not telling Sibilla he’d lost her dowry money, nor bringing himself to write to Mr. Dent at the bank in London, to inquire about mortgages, as Harry had advised. Not appeasing Sir John by offering Haviland employment. Not finding a doctor who could cure Harry’s father.
For pity’s sake, he’d not even been able to do something as simple as keep that fop Dulcie from antagonizing poor Benedict at every turn.
Which, he saw as he stepped free of the field and onto the Saybrook House back law, Dulcie appeared to be in the midst of doing yet again. And not just with the sharpness of his tongue this time, but with the deadly point of a rapier.
And with Harry standing not ten feet away from the clashing blades.
With a curse, Theo broke into a run.
“You see, Miss Atherton, the true art of sword defense depends, in great measure”—Dulcie paused to parry Benedict’s thrust—“on judgment in deceiving the adversary’s motions, and in not being deceived by his.”
Theo batted Dulcie’s sword to the side with a gloved hand before the man had a chance to riposte. “Judgment? Neither of you show very much of it, waving weapons about in the presence of a lady. Could you not have chosen some less violent manner of settling your disagreement?”
“Disagreement?” Dulcie exclaimed, eyebrows raised. “Why, I would never presume to take issue with the upstanding Mr. Benedict Pennington. No, we took up these weapons—foils only, you see, so no danger of harming even a fly—to show Miss Atherton how a display of swordsmanship might add to the festivities at the upcoming fete. Do you not agree, Saybrook, that yon peasants would thrill to witness such a sight?”
“Less so than at the sight of your waistcoat, Dulcie,” Benedict said, tossing his foil to the grass and swiping a sleeve over his damp brow.
“Indeed.” Dulcie slid a complacent hand over the silk of his gaudy garment, as if his brother’s words had been a compliment rather than a jab. “Your people will hardly be able to talk of anything else for weeks, of that I have no doubt. Now do say you agree, Miss Atherton, and allot us time to display.”
Harry picked up Benedict’s discarded weapon and swished it in through the air with a practiced hand. Where had she learned to handle a sword with such ease?
“Such a performance would be wonderful, of course, my lord. But the contests at the fete, they are usually for the villagers themselves. And not between gentlemen they hardly know,” Harry said with an apologetic frown in Benedict’s direction.
“But that is even better!” Dulcie said, clapping a hand against his thigh. “They know the new Lord Saybrook, do they not? Or, at least, you wish them to know him better, and regard him in a more positive light. So, rather than cross swords with the younger Mr. Pennington here, I will make Lord Saybrook my opponent. And when he defeats me in glorious combat, why, he’ll be a veritable hero in their eyes.”
Dulcie knelt before Theo and held out his sword before him in an exaggerated display of medieval fealty. Damn the fellow for a preening coxcomb.
“You’re an accomplished swordsman, Theo?” Harry asked, holding out Benedict’s sword as if it were the greatest of gifts. “Why did you never say?”
The admiration in her eyes had Theo gritting his teeth. But before he had the chance to explain that fencing, like dancing and arithmetic, were decidedly not among his list of accomplishments, Dulcie jumped to his feet.
“Oh, Saybrook’s skills do not matter. Because I will allow him to win. The peasants need never know,” he said with a wink.
“And you would do such a thing out of the kindness of your heart?” Benedict scoffed.
“Certainly not. Sentimentality is the realm of the foolish. Saybrook must first do something for me.”
Theo snorted. “What, promise you my firstborn son?”
“Ha! As if I’d ever want any get of yours. No, you will order this stubborn brother of yours to accept my commission for a portrait.”
“A portrait?” Harry asked. “Of whom?”
Benedict shook his head. “Of his preening, coxcomb self. I’ve told you and told you, Dulcie, I’ve given over painting the human figure. Landscapes are my focus now.”
“And what all of those dough
ty shepherds you’ve been sketching? Are they too lowly to count as human?”
Theo had been wondering, too, but he would never have twitted his brother in front of others. Viscount Dulcie, though, had no such scruples.
He smiled with sympathy at his brother, but all of Benedict’s attentions were focused on his tormentor.
“Dulcie, you are impossible,” Benedict said, throwing his hands up in the air before turning his back on them all and stomping toward the house.
“Why should the idea of a commission so upset him?” Harry’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement.
“Because he is a stubborn, petulant child?” Dulcie asked. “And look, he’s stormed off without even retrieving his foil. Would you be so kind, Miss Atherton, as to return it to him before he regrets its loss?”
“Certainly, my lord.” Harry gave a quick curtsey before dashing off in Benedict’s wake, the sword tucked carefully by her side.
Theo’s eyes followed the enticing sight. “You wish to employ Benedict to paint for you? After you’ve teased him so unmercifully about his clear lack of talent?”
“Well, yes.” Dulcie had the good grace to look embarrassed. “The boy should know by now that I don’t always mean every cutting word that falls from my lips.”
“I think an apology from you would go farther in changing his mind than anything I could say to him.”
“But he won’t listen to me. Not anymore.”
Theo was surprised by the catch of true feeling in the viscount’s voice. Did Dulcie really care what Benedict thought of him? As much as Benedict, for all his scathing set-downs, seemed to care for the good opinion of Lord Dulcie?
Theo stared at his brother’s retreating back. Benedict could use some sort of inspiration, something to help him move beyond his current frustrations with his art. Perhaps a commission from a former doubter would give him a nudge in the right direction.
But forcing the two men together might only make the situation worse.