“How kind,” Alexander murmured distantly. “Perhaps I will join you for a few days. It might be diverting.”
Thomas smirked into his coffee, and Alex knew he hadn’t fooled the American in the slightest. The truth was, he’d already received and rejected more than a dozen invitations to Christmas house parties, many of them at homes both more magnificent and more conveniently situated to London than Havers Hall, a good three days’ journey away in Herefordshire, near the Welsh border.
All those invitations, however, had been extended by families with marriageable daughters looking to snag a marquis to hang on their family tree. Thomas and Ellen had no such ulterior motive. No, they had invited him quite simply for the pleasure of his company, and therefore he made up his mind then and there to accept the offer.
“Has Lady Havers invited many single ladies?” he asked in a last-ditch effort to talk himself out of it.
“Only a couple, I believe, and they’re rather of the bluestocking variety who definitely wouldn’t be likely to set their caps for you, never fear. There’s also a widowed friend of hers who we hope to persuade to come.”
“Ah, merry widows. Those I appreciate.” Alex grinned wickedly.
Thomas shook his head, laughing in his good-natured way. “Don’t play the rake with me, Glenkellie, I’ve seen you roll your eyes when ladies of the demi-rep make eyes at you. You’ve no more interest in them than I do, and have not even the good reason of a wife you adore!”
“You haven’t known me all that long, Havers. For the right bird of paradise, I can be very accommodating indeed.”
“I don’t think Lady Creighton will be falling into your arms, charming as I’m sure you can be if you make the effort,” Thomas said dryly.
Alex froze in the act of setting down his coffee cup. “Lady Creighton? The… former countess?”
Thomas’ brow wrinkled. “Correct, though I think she’s technically still a countess. Ellen says ‘Marianne, Lady Creighton’ is the correct address now, however. Since she’s not the mother of the current earl, she’s not a dowager.” He looked exasperated. “Have I the right of that, or do I need to consult Debrett’s again? I swear, the whole English system of titles and honorifics has the most abstruse rules; it’s worse than conjugating Latin verb tenses! Sometimes I think Lady Jersey just makes them up as she goes along.”
Alex burst out laughing, entertained as always by Thomas’ irreverent wit. “It’s quite possible you’re correct,” he said between guffaws, “but it’s almost certainly not the done thing to talk about it!”
Thomas grinned unrepentantly. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure Lady Jersey would be highly entertained if she found out I’d said it!”
“Only because she likes your wife so much.” His chuckles subsiding, Alex picked up his coffee cup and drained the last of it. “Very well, Havers. Please tell Lady Havers I shall be delighted to accept your invitation to spend the Christmas season with you at Havers Hall.”
“You can tell her yourself,” Thomas said, finishing off his own coffee. “She also told me to invite you to dinner tonight, if you’re not otherwise engaged.”
“Well, I’d planned to dine here, but the chance to spend an evening being amused by you and charmed by your lovely lady is far too tempting to pass up.”
“Excellent, we’ll see you around seven, then? I must take my leave, I’m sorry. Tomorrow is our first wedding anniversary and I have to stop by Garrard’s to collect Ellen’s gift.”
“Until this evening, then.” Alex nodded in farewell and watched as Thomas collected his hat and coat and left the club, speaking cheerfully to several gentlemen as he passed.
Havers was possibly the most likable man he’d ever met, Alex mused, and he wondered whatever he had done to attract as a friend a man who could befriend literally anyone.
Lifting one hand, he fingered the long, livid scar down his cheek, where a Frenchman’s bayonet had nearly skewered him at Waterloo. The tip of the blade had missed his eye by less than a quarter inch, scraping downwards and flaying his cheek to the bone, ripping a long gash all the way to his chin. The infection afterwards had nearly cost Alex his life.
The jagged scar, still red almost four years later, was ugly enough that several young women of less than robust constitutions had been sickened by it. One had even swooned from the horror. He hadn’t yet met one who could look him in the eyes and not stare at his scar with a horrified fascination, riveted by its ugliness.
Alexander Rotherhithe was no longer the perfectly handsome young man a diamond of the Ton had sworn her heart to. The scar pulled as he smiled tightly, hitching one corner of his mouth up into a grimace.
Marianne Abingdon hadn’t waited for him as she had promised. She hadn’t even done him the courtesy of sending him a letter, telling him she’d chosen another. The first he’d known of her betrayal was when a brother officer had wordlessly handed him a copy of a month-old newspaper, folded open to the announcements of marriages, and the bottom had fallen out of his world.
Alex remembered little of the next few months. He’d drowned his sorrows in liquor, whenever he could find any, and in leading suicidal charges in every damned battle across the Iberian Peninsula. Or so it seemed later, when he’d finally come out of his haze to realise he’d been promoted (twice!) and decorated with more medals and mentions in dispatches than any one soldier should earn in a lifetime of war, never mind only two years of it.
How he’d escaped death; he had no idea. But somehow he had. Because of it he’d drawn around him a cadre of devoted soldiers who had convinced themselves he was some sort of god of war -- unbeatable on the battlefield.
An officer who could inspire that sort of loyalty was far too valuable to the War Office to have anywhere else but on the battlefield. Even during Bonaparte’s exile on Elba, Alex hadn’t been permitted to return to England. Only when he was finally -- shockingly -- wounded at Waterloo, proving himself mortal after all, was he allowed to leave the field. He recuperated in Brussels, and as soon as he was fit to sit a horse, he was set to be sent straight back out again to mop up stray pockets of French resistance.
Perhaps he’d have carried on fighting England’s wars until he grew old and grey or a bullet proved he was only mortal in the most final way possible, but for a freak accident of succession. Once fourth in line to the marquisate, he’d suddenly become the heir apparent when his uncle, cousin and father were all killed in a flood which swept away their hunting party as they descended a narrow gully.
His grandfather had summoned Alex home peremptorily, and not even the lords at the War Office were inclined to deny the old man his only living heir -- no matter how useful a soldier.
Packed onto a ship bound for Inverness with no ceremony at all, Alex had arrived home barely in time to bid farewell to his grandfather. Broken-hearted by the death of both his sons and the grandson he’d raised from birth to be his successor, Duncan Rotherhithe had cast one disparaging look over Alex and declared, “You’ll have to do, I suppose,” before drawing his final breath.
He’d been living down to his grandfather’s expectations ever since.
Chapter Four
)
Creighton Hall, Cumbria
Early December, 1819
“Another letter for you, Aunt Marianne.” Her nephew Arthur, the new Earl of Creighton, passed the letter to her from the stack a footman had just delivered to the breakfast table on a silver salver.
“Thank you,” Marianne said sedately, taking the letter and putting it into her pocket.
“You will not read it now?” Her successor as Countess, Lavinia, peered at her from watery blue eyes. Curiosity sharpens her already thin face, making her look rather like a ferret, Marianne thought whimsically.
“It is only from my friend Ellen,” she disclaimed quietly, lifting her cup to take a sip of tea. “No doubt full of inane gossip from Herefordshire.”
“You do exchange a lot of letters with her,” Arthur said peevishly. “The p
ostage costs a pretty penny.”
Marianne took a deep, unseen breath to suppress her immediate urge to make a sharp retort. “She is a faithful correspondent,” she answered after a moment, “but an excellent contact to maintain, nonetheless. With Lady Diana to make her debut next Season, I feel it is imperative to keep my Society friendships alive.”
“Yes,” Lavinia said quickly with a sharp glance at her husband, “yes, of course, you must maintain the friendship, Marianne. The Countess of Havers will be an invaluable friend to have when Diana makes her bows, Arthur.”
Marianne hid her smile behind her cup as Arthur sighed and acquiesced to Lavinia’s demand. The new Earl had been raised on a very limited allowance and still liked to pinch a penny until it squeaked. Without expectation of inheriting the title since his uncle had been most determined to sire an heir, neither Arthur nor Lavinia had ever even been to London. They knew nobody and would be dependent on Marianne to make their introductions when their eldest daughter was presented.
Marianne had no intention of informing them Ellen had far fewer friends among the London set than Marianne herself. With Ellen as her only regular correspondent, she would lie without compunction to keep her friendship alive.
After all, so very much had already been taken from her.
)
Much later that day, as she walked back to the small cottage grandiosely named the Creighton Estate Dower House, Marianne slipped the letter from her pocket and broke the seal. She had hoped to escape earlier, but Lavinia required her to be available at all times to assist with her five children -- four of whom were daughters who Lavinia desperately wanted to marry well.
Her father died penniless shortly after her marriage, which left her dependent on Arthur and Lavinia. Since she had never had a dowry and her widow’s jointure was almost non-existent, Marianne had no choice but to essentially act as an unpaid finishing school teacher to the four girls, teaching them the social graces they had not learned so far. By the time she led them through a reading in French, given each a half-hour piano lesson and a group singing class, helped them with their needlework, and supervised Diana’s efforts at pouring tea, it was late afternoon and Marianne was desperate for some time to herself, even if it was only an hour before she must return to take dinner with the family.
Still in the habit of penny-pinching, Arthur saw no reason to employ a cook for Marianne’s use when she could perfectly well take meals with them. It was only grudgingly that he permitted a chambermaid to come over from the main house to clean the cottage and lay the fires and a man to spend an hour or so every other day carrying firewood and water.
“You might as well live in the house with us,” Arthur had said when he and Lavinia had first moved in with their children. “Take a room with the girls. No sense opening up the Dower House just for you, is there?”
Lavinia had proved a surprising ally when Marianne insisted she needed her own space. Marianne suspected it was because Lavinia liked to escape over to visit her now and then, taking a break from her noisy, demanding family. Lavinia always brought some biscuits and they would share a quiet cup of tea before returning to the chaos of the main house.
Marianne doubted she and Lavinia would ever be friends - it had to be hard on the new Countess, to have a predecessor ten years her junior still hanging around - and Lavinia was certainly not above using Marianne’s dependence on them for her own ends. Still, Marianne would not say she was unhappy.
Not as unhappy as she had been, anyway, even if she no longer wore bright, expensive silk gowns and drank champagne at the most exclusive events in London. Now she wore heavy gowns in the black or grey of mourning, despite her official period ending a month past. Since her husband had preferred to reside in London for most of the year, she had nothing else to wear which was suitable for Creighton’s cold winters, and with six dozen gowns in her wardrobe already Arthur would not spend another penny on clothing for her.
Perhaps I should try and sell some of my old gowns, Marianne mused, or exchange them for some plainer, warmer ones. Certainly she would not need as many as once she had, even when they repaired to London for Diana’s Season.
At least then she would see Ellen again, and the thought warmed her. Settling down in her comfortable chair near the fire in her tiny parlour, she unfolded her letter and began to read.
)
“You look remarkably pleased with yourself, Aunt Marianne,” Arthur remarked as soon as she entered the parlour before dinner.
“I have received an invitation to visit my friend, Lady Havers,” Marianne said. “I have already advised her of Diana’s upcoming debut, and she proposes that I travel to Haverford to visit with her for a couple of weeks over Christmas and then accompany them on to London to rejoin you in time for the start of the Season.”
Arthur had been sipping on a glass of wine; he lowered it now and stared at her, his brow furrowing. “Why would you do that?” he asked, apparently genuinely befuddled.
“Visit with Lady Havers?” Confused in turn, Marianne stared back. “She is my friend, Arthur, and I am very much looking forward to seeing her again. Though we would see her in London, of course, I will be much tied up with Diana…”
“No,” Arthur shook his head. “I think there has been some misunderstanding, Aunt Marianne. You’re not coming to London.”
“What?” Marianne blinked, astonished.
Lavinia did not meet Marianne’s eyes when she spoke. “You have done us the very great service of writing letters of introduction to everyone we will need to know, but you need not accompany us yourself. Indeed, it would be much better for you to remain here with the other girls, focusing on their education and their futures.”
“Better for whom?” Marianne enquired, then nodded as enlightenment dawned. “Ah… for Diana, of course. You do not want me to be a distraction to any potential suitors, I daresay.”
“You flatter yourself.” Arthur’s expression turned puce. “You’re a penniless widow. What possible attraction could you have for the sort of gentlemen who would court an earl’s daughter?”
“I have never cared for false modesty,” Marianne informed him, “so I will merely say that even when I was an earl’s wife, there were never any shortage of gentlemen who should have been courting earls’ daughters who preferred to seek my company instead. Though I was never permitted to so much as smile in their direction, much less dance with them.”
She saw exactly how it was, and in truth, she could not blame Arthur and Lavinia. Diana was a pretty enough girl and pleasant-natured in a quiet way, but in a room with Marianne she would pale into the background, and they all knew it.
“Very well,” Marianne said after a few moments of taut silence. “If I am not to join you in London, so be it. May I at least visit with my friend beforehand and return here when they depart for London?”
“No,” Arthur said, and she knew he would not be moved. He stared at her, his lips thinned. “I will not permit it.”
“How fortunate, then, that you are not my husband, or my father or brother, and therefore are not in a position of authority to permit or deny me anything!” Marianne’s temper flared. She had thought she was done with being controlled by men when Creighton died. She would not tolerate it from a man not even related to her by blood!
“Perhaps not.” Arthur’s smile was unpleasant. “But I will certainly not permit your use of our carriage to travel, and as for money…”
“Arthur,” Lavinia said quietly. “Enough.”
It’s probably a good thing Lavinia stepped in, Marianne thought as she turned and stormed from the parlour, her fists clenched at her sides. If Arthur had said one more word about my complete lack of funds, I would have slapped him, and goodness knows where that would have ended.
In the hallway, she almost collided with Diana and her next-in-age sister Clarissa, who both jumped out of her way with startled gasps. She did not even stop to acknowledge them, striding straight back out through the side door
she always used and down the short path to her cottage.
I’ve traded in one prison for another, she thought, stamping her feet as she strode back and forth in her small bedroom. She was still not free to live her life as she chose, and she very likely never would be.
)
By the following morning, her stomach was grumbling, but Marianne could not bring herself to go up to the house for breakfast and pretend nothing had happened the night prior. She had spent a sleepless night tossing and turning, trying to find a way out of her dilemma and failing. It all came down to money: something of which she had none and no way to get any.
Even if she could find a position as a paid governess or companion, that would be better than working for free for Arthur and Lavinia. But who would hire her? It wasn’t as though she had any references. While there might be some rich merchant families who would hire her for the sheer novelty of having a countess work for them, she shied away from the notion. How would she even go about finding such a position, anyway? She had not the faintest idea how such things were done.
A knock at the front door surprised her, and she sighed and went to answer it. She had few visitors, and Lavinia never knocked.
It was a surprise to find Diana and Clarissa on the doorstep, both looking at her with worried eyes. Clarissa held out a small package wrapped in a linen napkin. “Good morning, Aunt Marianne. We - we thought you might be hungry.”
She was not too proud, Marianne discovered, to accept the offering. Inside there was a half loaf of fresh bread, a chunk of cheese, and several slices of ham. “Thank you,” she managed past a lump in her throat. “That’s very kind of you, girls. Would you like to come in?”
Neither of the girls had ever been inside the cottage, and they stepped in shyly, looking about with wide eyes. She gestured them into her tiny parlour, and they sat down together on the little couch, shoulders almost touching.
A Marquis For Marianne (Blushing Brides Book 2) Page 2