A Gamble on Love

by Blair Bancroft

  “Do not speak nonsense!” Lady Trent told her daughter. “Go against Gravenham? Absurd!”

  “But Alan—Captain Fortescue—refused to run,” Jane persisted.

  “That was personal inclination, I believe,” Relia said. “But go against his father’s wishes? I doubt it. And Twyford is his friend . . . although how the captain could be so indiscriminate in his taste I have never understood.”

  “Nonetheless—”

  Relia eyed Jane Edmundson with sharpened interest. “Do you, then, have some idea of the captain’s feelings in this matter?”

  The widow ducked her head, hiding a blush. “The captain has been gracious enough to call at Trent Manor once or twice since Christmas.”

  “Or four or five or six,” intoned her mother with a self-satisfied curl of her lip.

  Relia leaned forward. “Is it possible, then? Will he come out for Mr. Lanning?”

  “He likes him. Very much,” Jane confided softly. “I will ask.”

  “Is it possible?” Later that night, in the privacy of their rooms, Thomas Lanning echoed his wife’s question. “The endorsement of Gravenham’s son, a wounded veteran of the Peninsula? Lord!” Thomas paced the carpet in the sitting room, running his hands through his dark hair until it is was nothing more than a disheveled heap.

  “I am almost sorry I mentioned it,” Relia said, “for family loyalty is always strong. The captain may wish to endorse your candidacy, but whether or not he will actually do it . . .”

  “After what happened today, he may very well do so.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Gravenham is so fearful of losing again that he’s invoking the old burgage rights. Today he served eviction notices on thirteen widows living in burgage properties.”

  “Whatever for?” Relia cried, instantly outraged, though not quite understanding the significance.

  “Because the right to vote is tied to their cottages, and they cannot vote.”

  “Merciful heavens,” Relia breathed. “That is despicable.”

  “Indeed. Westover is arranging to bring in voters from London to counteract Gravenham’s maneuvering—”

  “London? But how is that possible?”

  “Ah, such political naïveté,” Thomas teased, coming to a halt and managing a wry smile. “And, no, you need not tell me you would know more about politics if women had the vote. My understanding is capable of anticipating that remark.” His wife sniffed, but kept silent. “Any man who has ever had the vote in this borough may return for the election. We, too, will bring in voters from beyond the borough—from as far away as the Midlands and the West Country, but the majority will be from London.”

  “A transportation nightmare, surely?”

  “Which is why I have employed so many experts. Voting is to be spread over six days. We will manage.”

  “Thomas . . .?”

  “Yes?”

  “Every morning you hold breakfasts at the inn, with, I’m told, as much ale as food. All day you canvass door to door, showering the constituents with smiles and handshakes, wringing from them the promise of their vote. Then every evening it is back to The Hound and Bear for more food and vast quantities of drink. How is it you return home so remarkably well preserved and steady on your feet?”

  “Good God, my dear, was that a compliment?”

  “It was a serious question. I am curious.” For once, Thomas noted, his wife’s smile was close to winsome. It became her.

  “Then it deserves a serious answer.” Thomas sank into one of the comfortable chairs facing the fireplace. “I suppose . . . yes, I endure because I must. Because campaigning is only a few short weeks, and needs must when the devil drives. I find I draw energy from the people. Each person is different—a challenge. Someone I am promising to serve in return for his vote. Each day I learn more about what is needed, and, like you, I make lists of what needs to be done for this borough after I win. As for the ale?” Thomas proffered an almost boyish grin. “It is the floorboards of The Hound and Bear that should be reeling with drink. I have grown adept at letting gravity empty my mug.”

  Relia shook her head. “Political smoke and mirrors. I should have known.”

  “Would you rather I had to be carried home each night?”

  “As if that would gain you votes!”

  Thomas thought it was a propitious time to change the subject. “Has Miss Aldershot shown any signs of softening?” he inquired.

  “Gussie will not do more than bid Mr. Westover good morning,” Relia replied, “yet she works for your campaign as if she herself were running for office. But with all of you out of the house from seven to midnight, there is little opportunity for any form of reconciliation.”

  Thomas stretched and yawned, the comfort of the sitting room, the pleasure of his wife’s presence, making him careless of his words. “I have promised myself we will go away somewhere after the election, perhaps back to Tunbridge Wells, where I plan to spend at least a week in bed.”

  Silence. Thomas’s eyes snapped open, encountering the stunned look on his wife’s face. “Devil it!” he growled. “Do you think I’m made of iron? That I’m not aware I am married to a woman of wit and beauty? A siren who waits in her lair to taunt me night after night, even though she’s a Lady and I’m a lowly Cit? Do you actually think I do not care? Well, woman, say something!”

  “I think,” said his wife, rising to her feet, “that you have endured too many days of seven to midnight and that it will only get worse. If you wish, the siren will avoid this sitting room for the duration of the campaign.”

  “Good God, no!” Thomas roared. “These few moments are my only sanity. You”—he swallowed, face grim. She was the well from which he filled his soul. Though until this very moment, he’d never admitted it. “I need these few quiet moments,” he said at last. “If you do not mind.”

  “Of course not,” his wife murmured, eyes demurely downcast. “Goodnight, Thomas.” She stood and crossed to her bedchamber, head high, chin in the air. She opened the door, her shoulder slumped. Slowly, she turned around to face him. “Thomas . . . I would be pleased to return to Tunbridge Wells. Goodnight.” The door closed softly behind her, leaving Thomas to stare after her, not quite believing his ears.

  Mr. Blacklock’s sketch of the Whig candidate for MP was so successful, portraying Thomas Lanning in a noble pose, yet with his eyes somehow promising he would never forget he was a man of the people, that Carleton Westover ordered it printed on enough handbills and posters to wallpaper the entire borough. This, of course, also did much to ensure the vote of every printer and papermaker, not to mention those put to work painting bright blue and red cockades in each corner. And then there were the drapers who provided endless ells of blue and red fabric for banners, streamers, and the ribbon bouquets the candidate’s supporters wore pinned to their lapels. Buy local, buy local, intoned Mr. Westover each day. And so they did. Even if it meant driving loads of country-made goods up to London, where Mr. Lanning donated them to the poor.

  Mr. Hugh Blacklock’s caricature of the opposing candidate was equally successful. Enough so that heated words, exacerbated by the eviction of widows, escalated into rowdyism, with Mr. Trevor’s followers ripping down, first, their candidate’s unflattering caricatures and, shortly thereafter, spilling over into ridding the walls of Mr. Lanning’s portrait as well. Since both aspiring members of Parliament had set up headquarters in rival inns a scant half-mile apart, the controversy rapidly turned physical.

  If anyone had asked her, Relia thought when regaled with this news one morning at breakfast, she would have had to admit she had every confidence in Big Mike Bolt. One look at the bruiser, and, after the initial shock, she had not doubted his ability to handle any sort of violence. She should be appalled, but, truth to tell, she felt only satisfaction at the routing of Twyford’s bully boys. Not that she would ever tell Thomas so.

  As if she would have the opportunity! For in spite of their growing accommodation to each oth
er’s foibles, precious moments of private conversation were few and far between. Thomas was gone off to The Hound and Bear before she rose, and came home long after exhaustion had forced her to seek her bed. Quite incredibly, she missed him. Yes, she admitted it. Relia’s fingers paused over the prize ribbons for the Winter Festival that she, Gussie, and Livvy were assembling in the morning room. She even missed their quarrels. Yet she was proud of him. Thomas Lanning was going to be a splendid MP. One who would serve his people. One who was likely to rise, like rich cream, above the other four hundred and two Members of Parliament.

  “You have visitors, madam.” There was something ominous in Biddeford’s tone that snapped Relia out of her reverie in a trice. Gussie and Livvy, also alerted, ceased their low-voiced conversation. “It is Lord and Lady Hubert, madam. And Mr. Trevor.”

  Livvy gasped. Miss Aldershot clutched her heart. Relia’s body went cold.

  Thomas! Dragonslayer! Where are you when I need you?

  “Biddeford, you old fool,” Lord Hubert shouted, pushing the butler out of the way. “How dare you keep us cooling our heels in the hall? Aurelia, Miss Aldershot, good day. And who the devil are you?” he demanded, catching sight of Miss Lanning.

  “Ungrateful child!” spat Lady Hubert, hard on her husband’s heels. “You have ruined us all. Disgraced the family name. We have come to give you a last chance to redeem yourself, to allow your poor mama and papa—God rest their souls!—to lie easy in their graves. Tell her, Twyford,” she declaimed, with a dramatic thrust of her hand toward her only son. “Tell her she must immediately abandon this monstrous behavior.”

  “Morning, cuz,” drawled The Terrible Twyford. “Ah . . . the exquisite Miss Lanning.” He bowed.

  To Relia’s disgust, Livvy colored up and simpered. Good God, had the chit no discrimination?

  To Mr. Trevor’s credit, he displayed more sense than his esteemed parents, calmly ushering them to the morning room’s lyre-back chairs before taking a seat directly across from his cousin. “All alone, Relia?” he inquired softly. “Your houseful of hucksters have deserted you?”

  “You know quite well they are out canvassing. As you should be. Or is Gravenham doing all your work—buying outsiders willing to vote as he tells them?”

  “Naughty, naughty, dear cuz. Association with your cur of a husband has obviously tainted your reasoning.”

  Livvy leaped to her feet, Mr. Trevor’s open admiration of her person forgotten. “You are despicable!” she cried.

  “Olivia!” Gussie Aldershot put an arm around Miss Lanning and murmured in her ear. Both women subsided onto the gold- and cream-striped settee.

  At least Livvy was no longer dazzled by The Terrible Twyford, Relia thought as she gathered her courage. “If you have come to insult me,” she said, “you may leave now. I have no wish to hear anything you might say.”

  “Come, come, dear girl.” Twyford offered the smile that had once presaged his tearing the wings off butterflies. “We are here as your family. Because we are concerned for you. We wish to rescue you from the monster you chose so misguidedly. Come with us now, we beg you. Fly back to the safety of Middlethorpe Manor and escape all this nonsense. We know you cannot like it. Such a quiet country mouse—always so grave and bookish. You stand beside Lanning, pale and suffering. ’Tis plain to see you hate every moment—”

  “That’s not true!” Relia cried. “I have smiled until my face cracks, shaken hands until I cannot move my fingers. I have admired every last baby and half-grown child in the borough, poured so many cups of tea I sometimes imagine doing it in my sleep. I am a good campaigner. Never say I am not!”

  “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

  “Go away, Twyford. You are not wanted here.”

  “We will not go away!” Lord Hubert roared. “This is my brother’s home.”

  “This is my home. My husband’s home. As long as you speak ill of him, you are not welcome here.” And she meant every word of it. Even if she had liked the Hubert Trevors and their abominable son, she would have repudiated them today. Because they had insulted Thomas. Her husband. The Cit.

  The Whig candidate for the House of Commons.

  Who was somehow standing in the doorway, large and vital, looking ready to harness thunderbolts and cast the intruders from the room. For a moment Relia felt dizzy. He had heard her. Every word.

  And God bless Biddeford who must have sent for him. Or perhaps someone had seen the Trevor carriage rolling through the village.

  “I heard you needed a dragonslayer, my dear,” he said, but his unwavering gaze was fixed on his opponent. “Lady Hubert, Lord Hubert, Trevor, when this election is over, we will honor the family connection—at christenings and weddings, perhaps. But at the moment we find your visit most inappropriate. Just imagine what our respective supporters may say about such a private meeting. I fear both our candidacies could suffer. Do you not agree, Trevor? Biddeford, I believe Lord Hubert and his family are leaving. Would you be kind enough to show them out?”

  Christenings and weddings? Relia did not even notice the Trevors’s departure. Thomas spoke of christenings. Whose christenings?

  Foolish female, she knew quite well what he meant. The christening of little Lannings, who would tumble over the park, race across the bridge to the rotunda, which would become—as it once had for her—a castle, a pirate ship, Sherwood forest, a high mountain, a beleaguered desert fort.

  Her children. Thomas’s children. Not so startling, after all. They were married, were they not? And among his campaign promises, had her husband not included a return to Tunbridge Wells?

  Miss Aldershot took Livvy firmly by the arm and led her out of the room, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Lanning alone in the morning room. The look on both faces, usually well hidden behind their public façades, was suddenly naked. Vulnerable. Dear God, Gussie thought, how she envied them. For she had been even more of a fool than Relia. What good was pride in the long, lonely hours of the night? Forgiveness is divine.

  But the men came home so late. When, during this interminable campaign, would she ever have the opportunity . . . ?

  She was mistaken. Carleton Westover, Thaddeus Singleton, Patrick Fallon, Hugh Blacklock, Nicholas, and Big Mike Bolt were all gathered in the entry hall, a solid phalanx overseeing the departure of the opposing candidate and his family. Gussie felt a surge of warmth. She and Relia had found a most excellent dragonslayer. One with a great many assistants.

  “Mr. Westover,” declared Gussie Aldershot, “I wonder if I might have a word with you?”

  ~ * ~

  Chapter Twenty-one

  To the ladies’ astonishment, the candidate and his Election Agent forsook the nightly revels at The Hound and Bear and joined the family at dinner. Even Nick’s excited revelation that it was he, while acting as messenger for the Election Committee, who had noticed the Trevor carriage and galloped ventre à terre for help, could not keep the three Lannings from noticing the startling change in the hostile atmosphere that customarily radiated between Gussie Aldershot and Carleton Westover.

  “Smelling of April and May,” Livvy giggled in Relia’s ear later that evening as she turned pages for her sister-in-law’s offerings on the pianoforte.

  “More like September and October,” Relia shot back, then missed a note or two as she realized how far her good manners had fallen. It was the Election, of course. Her association with so many vulgar people.

  No, it was not. It was having another young woman in the house. Someone to talk to . . . almost like a sister. Indeed, Livvy was a sister, was she not? And in another year they would brave London society together. She, the wife of a Member of Parliament, and Miss Olivia Lanning, his sister.

  Once again, Relia’s fingers faltered. Somehow London no longer seemed so formidable, a ton jungle to be carefully avoided by remaining in the tranquility of Kent. Astonishing. When had she begun to look up and see a world beyond Pevensey Park?

  The day she sat at the table in Sir Gi
lbert Bromley’s office and saw Thomas Lanning walk through the door. Relia’s lips curved into a smile.

  She must have finished her étude, for the men were applauding. Relia managed a grimace of a smile in response, then hastened to one of the tall windows, hiding her face as she pulled aside the drapery and peered out into the night. Love at first sight. Impossible. Quite impossible.

  It had indeed been love at first sight, though she had been fighting most gallantly against it ever since. Thomas Lanning, the Cit. Thomas Lanning, Prince of the Exchange. Thomas Lanning, Member of Parliament.

  Dear God, she loved him! How dared he do this to her? For in Thomas Lanning’s life she came in a distant fourth at best. After Politics. Livvy. Nick.

  Yet . . . all those nights they had met in the sitting room, he might have retired to his bedchamber via the dressing room door. But he had not. He had wanted to talk to her, she was certain of it. And had he not dropped everything today to dash to her rescue?

  That was his obligation. The very heart of his promise to her. And Thomas Lanning was an honorable man.

  Tunbridge Wells. He planned to spend a week in bed in Tunbridge Wells. Not alone.

  Relia gulped, took another look out the window. Reality was needed, not flights of fancy. “I fear it will rain,” she pronounced. “Two days ‘til the Festival, and what if the snow is all gone?”

  Thomas’s hand came down on her shoulder. Dear God, he was standing directly behind her! “There’s an old saying, my dear—Do not borrow trouble. And you will recall the vicar is on our side. It is indeed clouding up tonight, but the temperature is dropping. A fine covering of new snow is what we’ll have. Conditions will be perfect.”