by Anne Gracie
“I am her uncle, Lord Ashendon.”
Martha bobbed an awkward curtsey. “Sorry, m’lord. She said someone wanted to speak to me and stormed outside. Got a bit of a temper, Miss George has, but she’s a good-hearted lass.”
Cal nodded. A good-hearted lass? An undisciplined brat, more like. “You said you’d cared for Miss Georgiana since she was a babe. Where is her mother?”
“Miss Mary—I mean Mrs. Rutherford—died not long after giving birth to Miss George. Mr. Henry had left her by then. Fair shattered her heart, he did.”
“My brother married her? You’re sure of that?”
“Oh, yes sir, old Mr. Foster—Miss Mary’s father—made sure it was all legal like. He wasn’t going to have some London rake seduce his precious only daughter and not do right by her. They were married right and tight in the church here—the banns called and all—and he made Mr. Henry buy her this house and make her an allowance. Documents were signed, they were. The lawyer in the village, Mr. Chiswick, has copies.”
“I see.” Documented and legal, he had no doubt. So why hadn’t Henry informed his family?
The old woman added, “Miss George and me have been on our own since her grandparents died. Jem, the stableboy, stayed for a while, but a body can’t live without wages, so he left last summer.”
“And what about your own wages?”
The old woman gave him an indignant look. “I don’t need paying to look after Miss George, sir—I love that child like my own. Were you wanting something to eat, sir, because I’ve some soup on the hob and a nice bit of bread and cheese, if you’d like your dinner early.”
Hooves clattered on the cobbles outside, causing Cal to turn and look out the window. There was a blur of movement and then all he could see was a lithe figure astride a black stallion disappearing into the distance, a gray wolfhound loping along beside it.
Cal swore. “Was that—?”
“Miss George, yes. She does that from time to time—goes off on her lonesome with nothing but her horse and that hound—high spirited, she is—but never you mind, sir, she’ll be back in a day or so.”
“A day or so?” And where the hell did she stay while she was on these . . . outings?
The old woman nodded comfortably, not seeming to notice his outrage. “Aye. Never more than three days. But there’s no need to worry, sir, she always comes back, safe and sound. Now, will you be wanting—”
“A brandy, if there is such a thing in this benighted house.”
“No brandy, I’m afraid, sir, but there’s some parsnip wine if you fancy that.” She smiled at him in a motherly fashion. “Now don’t you fret about Miss George. It does no good, sir, no good at all. She goes her own ways, that lass. Always has and always will.” And she shuffled off.
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” Cal muttered as his niece disappeared over the horizon.
Damn Henry for a neglectful parent. Why the hell hadn’t he told Papa about the girl? Papa might have been a cold man, but he had a strong sense of family—and duty—and would gladly have taken a legitimate granddaughter in to raise with his own daughters.
Instead Henry had treated his only living child like a dirty little secret and left her to sink or swim on her own. Well, that would change.
This was no way for a young woman of good birth to live, in an isolated, run-down old farmhouse with no company but an old woman, a dog and a horse—and no income. And with half the hunting fraternity of the district apparently baying for her blood.
He sighed. Georgiana was even more undisciplined than his sisters. Putting them together would be like trying to put a fire out by adding oil to it. But he had no choice.
He swore under his breath. Dealing with two spirited young Rutherford females had nearly driven him to drink. What the hell was he going to do with three?
He had to take Georgiana back to Bath with him and prepare her—somehow—to enter her proper milieu. Or rather, pay someone to prepare her. He thought of the long-legged teacher again. She’d know how to do it. He’d have to increase his offer, make it worth her while.
* * *
He wrote a note to Aunt Dottie and told her to expect him back in a few days, along with a previously unknown niece. He wrote another letter to Phipps, explaining the situation, and a note to the lawyer Chiswick, asking him to call at Willowbank Farm at his earliest convenience.
He rang for Martha and Hawkins and gave them instructions to go into the village, post the letters, deliver the note and purchase whatever was needed for them all to be comfortable for the next few days—food, household goods, stable supplies, whatever.
He handed Martha a sum that made her eyes bulge. “And of course, anything you might require for yourself, Mrs. Scarrat. I will be making arrangements to have your back wages paid to you, but in the meantime, purchase whatever you want.”
As they turned to leave, he thought of something else. “Mrs. Scarrat, am I to understand that the clothing my niece wore today is her usual attire?”
“You mean breeches and boots? Yes, sir, I mean, my lord.”
“Then be so good as to purchase her a couple of dresses. And whatever else goes with and under them.” He handed her an extra few banknotes.
The old woman’s eyes widened. “Dresses, sir? But Miss George won’t wear dresses. She won’t wear nothing except breeches and boots.”
Cal gave her a steely smile. “We’ll see about that.”
* * *
Chiswick the lawyer came first thing the next morning. At first he was inclined to be stiff and formal and clearly prepared for battle, but once Cal had made it clear that he was disgusted by his brother’s neglect of his daughter and wanted to do right by her and her servants, the silver-haired old gentleman rapidly unbent.
“I don’t understand why Henry kept the marriage so secret.”
“She wasn’t of his station,” Chiswick told him. “Perfectly respectable family—good yeomen farmers—but not the right kind of wife for the heir to the Earl of Ashendon.”
“Do you think she tried to entrap Henry into marriage?”
Chiswick shook his head. “Nobody around here knew who he really was until long after the wedding. He came among us as plain Mr. Rutherford—rusticating, I believe the young bloods used to call it. Well, he took one look at pretty young Mary Foster and made a beeline for her. Sought her out at every opportunity.”
He sighed regretfully. “A lovely girl she was, just seventeen. Pretty as a picture, sweet-tempered and innocent as a spring lamb.” He shot Cal a glance from under gray beetling brows. “Your brother seduced her, the blackguard.”
Cal nodded. “But he must have cared for her enough to marry her.”
Chiswick snorted. “No choice in the matter. Mary’s father, George Foster, was a formidable fellow, for all that he was a farmer. Once he realized what had happened, he marched Henry up to the church, instructed the vicar to call the banns and kept Henry locked in the cellar until his wedding day.” He chuckled. “Henry was beside himself with rage at first—I went along as legal counsel to draw up the settlements—but the moment Foster demanded to know who Henry’s father was and threatened to go and fetch him, Henry quietened down and went through the service like a lamb.”
“My father was also a formidable man,” Cal said. “He would have made Henry pay.” If not for seducing an innocent, for getting caught. “At the very least he would have cut off Henry’s very generous allowance. Henry would have hated that.”
“We found out who he really was after Mary had died giving birth to young George.” Chiswick set his cup down and sighed. “I’d written to let him know, of course—” He saw Cal’s surprised look and added, “Oh, yes, he left her a few weeks after the wedding.”
Cal swore beneath his breath. A brother to be proud of indeed. Abandoning his pregnant seventeen-year-old wife.
“
I went up to London to notify him in person—and to point out his duty to the babe. That’s when I found out who he really was, that he was the heir to the Earl of Ashendon,” the old man said in a level voice. “The notice of his betrothal to Lady Mariah Eglinton appeared in the Morning Post exactly one month later.”
There was a long silence, broken only by the crackling of the fire and the wind outside in the trees.
The old lawyer added, “Young George doesn’t take after her mother much—she’s all Rutherford for the most part. But when she smiles, ah, when she smiles, you can see her mother in her then. Sweetest smile in the world.”
Cal was yet to see George smile. He was most familiar with her version of the Rutherford scowl.
“The family had no idea of any of this,” Cal told the old gentleman. “If my father had known, he would have taken the baby in and had her raised at Ashendon Court, as was her right. She wouldn’t have been”—he gestured—“running wild.”
Chiswick gave a wry grin. “And there would be a dashed sight fewer foxes in the district.”
“Has she really managed to disrupt the hunt? I met a few fellows in the village yesterday who expressed themselves in the strongest terms.”
Chiswick nodded. “Have you seen her ride?”
“I have,” Cal said grimly.
“With that black stallion of hers and a bag of smoked herring heads, she’s managed to bring the local hunt pretty much to its knees for the last three seasons. Got a soft spot for wild creatures, has young George.”
“Well, the hunters can relax. I’ll be removing her from the district.”
The old man shot him a searching look. “To what purpose?”
“I have two half sisters the same age as she is. It will be easier to look after them all together.” He saw the man’s hesitation. “What? You don’t imagine I’d leave her here, running wild and trying to hold things together on her own, do you?”
“It’s not that,” Chiswick said. “Have you told George yet? I can’t imagine she’ll agree. Very attached to her home, she is.”
“Georgiana is eighteen,” Cal reminded him. “It’s time she was thinking about marriage. I’ll launch all three of them together in London next season.”
As he uttered the words he realized it was the very solution. Get them married off as quickly as you can. Make them some other man’s problem.
“Won’t she be in mourning for her father?” Chiswick asked. “And your sisters for their uncle?”
Damn. That was right. They were supposed to spend a year in mourning because of Henry. Another year of mourning for his sisters.
People took these conventions so seriously. Why make such a display of death? As if draping yourself in black made any difference to how much you grieved. Or didn’t.
During the war, Cal had lived with death all around him, an everyday occurrence, a constant presence. He’d lost friends, good friends and comrades. He still missed some of them. But he’d learned not to wallow in the pain or dwell on the loss—not that there was any time for wallowing in wartime.
He thought of the outbreak of public mourning for the death of Princess Charlotte the previous year. It wasn’t just about grieving, though the nation did sincerely grieve her loss. It was also a show of respect.
But as far as Cal was concerned, death was a reminder to mankind to get on with the business of living. His preferred response to death was to celebrate life, not shroud yourself in black and retreat from it.
A year of mourning for Henry? Henry didn’t deserve it. And neither did the girls.
No, Cal would launch all three girls together in London this coming season.
And then he remembered. He’d be on the Continent in a couple of weeks, God willing.
Well, someone would launch the girls. His aunt or someone. He’d work out who later.
* * *
Georgiana stayed away for another two nights and two days. Cal used the time to check on the men on his list. Without success.
He would have wagered she’d have stayed longer had the weather not turned nasty, with a bitter wind and driving sleet coming down in sheets.
As it was, she simply appeared shortly before dinner on the third day, soaking wet, her boots and breeches covered in mud, but otherwise as cool and unconcerned as if she’d just stepped out for a moment. And without a word of acknowledgment—or apology—for her outrageous disappearance.
“Don’t fuss, Martha dear. I’m perfectly all right. It’s just a bit of mud and water. Is there any hot water? I’ll take a bath if there is.”
“And so you should, Miss George—catch your death one day, out like a savage in this weather, you mark my words! Now, get along upstairs. I’ll fetch the hot water to you at once.”
“And when you’ve had your bath,” Cal said as the girl turned to go, “you will change into one of the two new dresses you’ll find in your bedchamber.”
“Dresses! I’m not wearing any dresses!”
“Suit yourself, but no dress, no dinner,” Cal said indifferently. “I’ll see you before dinner in the sitting room.”
She gave him a mulish look. From the kitchen wafted the scent of roasting beef and Yorkshire pudding. Apple pie and clotted cream to follow. He’d wager she was ravenous. From the look of her she’d been living rough, sleeping in some old shed or haystack. There was straw in her hair. He wanted to throttle the stubborn little wretch for her foolishness.
The thought occurred to him, not for the first time, that she would have made a superb soldier. He squashed it.
She’d learn.
Georgiana entered the sitting room half an hour later, wearing one of the dresses. Her skin looked fresh and clean; her short, dark hair, still damp, curled attractively around her face. A little attention to grooming and deportment and she’d be a beauty.
“I hope you’re satisfied. I look ridiculous!” she snapped as soon as she saw him.
Cal stood as she entered. He shook his head. “You don’t, you know. You look very pretty. You look better as a girl than as a boy.” It was true. As a boy she looked skinny and lanky, but somehow the dress transformed that into a slender, deceptively delicate femininity.
She scowled horribly at him and flung herself into one of the overstuffed chairs in front of the fireplace. She went to cross her legs, as she usually did in her breeches, and discovered that dresses didn’t allow for such freedom of movement. She swore.
Cal was hard put not to laugh out loud. He controlled the impulse. Treating her with the dignity of a grown-up lady was the only way to reconcile her to her new state.
“Would you care for a sherry?” he asked.
She didn’t answer, so he poured her one anyway. When he turned to give it to her he found her standing behind him, still scowling. She took it, tossed it down in one gulp, then coughed.
“It’s meant to be sipped,” Cal told her, and refilled the little glass.
“It’s horrid,” she said. “I notice you’re not drinking it.”
“No, but ladies don’t drink cognac. You wouldn’t like it, either.”
She gave him a filthy look, drank her sherry down—again in one gulp—coughed, put the glass down and prowled around the room. She noticed that the documents on the window table had been rearranged and whirled around. “Snooping again, were you?”
“Familiarizing myself with my ward’s situation, yes,” he said. “And writing letters.”
She picked up the ink pot. “Oops!” She didn’t sound the least bit upset. Quite the reverse. “Oh, dear. What a calamity. And my new dress too.”
He looked up. She’d spilled an entire pot of black ink down the front of her new gown. It was ruined. He gritted his teeth.
“You mustn’t have stoppered the ink pot properly,” she said, innocent as a kitten. “I’ll just go up and change, shall I?”
�
�No, wear this shawl over it,” he told her. “It will cover the stain.” He tossed her an old woolen shawl that had been draped across one of the chairs. He had no doubt that if he allowed her to change, the second dress would go the way of the first.
“That’s Martha’s shawl.”
He shrugged. “I’m sure she won’t mind. Now, shall we go in to dinner, or is there something else you need to destroy first?” He offered her his arm.
They ate Martha’s magnificent dinner in silence.
“I’ll see you in the other dress for breakfast,” he told Georgiana at the end of the meal. From the look of her, she’d sleep like a log all night. “And if anything untoward happens to the other dress, you will get no breakfast.”
She gave an indifferent shrug, but he could tell by her expression that the fate of the second dress would now be delayed until after breakfast. Which exactly suited his plans.
Chapter Eight
What are young women made of?
Ribbons and laces, and sweet pretty faces.
—NURSERY RHYME
Georgiana came down to breakfast wearing a black scowl and a blue flowered dress—his threat had worked. Thank God for young women with healthy appetites. Her footsteps on the wooden floor suggested that beneath the dress she was wearing her boy’s riding boots, but Cal was prepared to accept that in the spirit of compromise.
Having spent up big in the village, Martha served a slap-up breakfast—eggs, ham, fresh-baked sweet rolls, hot chocolate for Georgiana, coffee for Cal. It was something in the way of a last supper, though his niece didn’t know that. She was too busy resenting Cal to notice Martha’s uncharacteristic silence.
He’d made his plans during his niece’s three-day absence. He’d made arrangements with Chiswick and sworn Martha and Hawkins to secrecy.
As they finished off the last of the magnificent breakfast, he heard Hawkins bringing the carriage around. Georgiana looked up. “Are you going somewhere?”
“Yes, I’m leaving for Bath this morning.”
“Excellent!” She grinned at him then, and though it was a grin of triumph, not to say glee, he glimpsed a trace of the sweetness Chiswick had mentioned.