The Loves of Lord Granton (The Changing Fortunes Series, Vol. 2)

by M C Beaton

  “I think you are expected to, you know.”

  “The major has gone to great lengths on my behalf to disabuse them of that, and they still seem tolerably pleased with my company.”

  “If you say so. You have more experience in matters of the heart than I.”

  “Really, Frederica, I should say you had no experience in matters of the heart at all.”

  “That is because of my age. I will learn.”

  “Aha. So this independent young miss who dares to doubt the superiority of men plans to have affairs of the heart?”

  “It is not beyond the bounds of possibility.” Frederica laughed. “With such a ball gown, I feel I could actually break hearts.”

  There was a rather heavy silence. Lord Granton was thinking that he had vaguely thought Frederica would always remain the same, always virginal, always waiting in the Cotswolds for him should he decide to return.

  “It would mean giving up your independence,” he said at last.

  “What independence? I have begun to think of marriage in a different light. Look at my present circumstances. I am considered a child, wear hand-me-down gowns, and do not put my hair up. Were I married to some amiable man, I would have an establishment of my own. I would have children, perhaps a horse and a dog. I would be free.”

  “You would have to obey your husband.”

  “I said, amiable man. I have begun to study married men in the village. Some of them, it seems, have to obey their wives!”

  “But since your parents have hitherto kept you back in a most unnatural way, how do you expect to meet a suitor?”

  “There are various winter assemblies and now I can dance. You have been a great help to me, Rupert, because now, too, I will not only be able to dance but to converse.”

  “My dear Frederica, I do not think you should converse with any gentleman the way you converse with me. You will have to learn to flirt.”

  “Like my sisters?”

  “I do not want to criticize your sisters, but I would suggest a little more finesse. Do you know how to flirt?”

  “I think so.”

  “Very well. Miss Frederica, you enchant me.”

  “I cannot quite cope with that, Rupert. It seemed too bold, too warm a compliment.”

  “Perhaps. Try this. It is amazing how well our steps match, Miss Frederica.”

  She gave him a glinting sideways glance and lowered her long eyelashes. “Why, sir, that is because you are such an excellent dancer. Where you lead, I follow.”

  “What a little actress you are,” he said somewhat crossly.

  “But all ladies need to be actresses, do you not think?”

  “I should have thought genuine regard and respect might enter into it somewhere.”

  “La, and I am considered the innocent! When in all your amours did you hold the lady in respect or regard?”

  “Not until now.”

  “Rupert, behave yourself or we cannot be friends.”

  “Forgive me, but you take me too seriously. I, too, was practicing to flirt.”

  “I do not think you need any practice at all.”

  Frederica stared angrily down at the magazine that now lay on the grass beside her. The wind turned the pages. She suddenly stiffened. There in the poetry section was a poem titled “The Contented Soldier.” The first line seemed to jump up at her: “I hear the raindrops patt’ring fast.”

  So Mary had not written that poem. She had merely copied it from this two-month-old edition of the Ladies’ Magazine!

  “What is it?” he asked. “I did not mean to offend you.”

  “Nothing,” said Frederica, closing the magazine. She suddenly did not want to betray her sister’s vanity.

  She picked up the magazine and stood up. “I must go. I will be missed, I think, if I stay here much longer.”

  He stood up as well, towering over her, his tall figure blotting out the sun.

  “So I will see you at the pool tonight?”

  Frederica felt afraid. She should not go on seeing him in this underhanded way. If he were a proper gentleman, he would call on her parents and ask their permission to pay his addresses to her. And then she blushed at the folly of her thoughts. Such as Lord Granton would never, ever consider her marriageable. And soon he would be gone, and she would be left with nothing but books and dreams.

  “Very well,” she said. He made to take her hand, but she slid nimbly past him and ran off through the wood, her white gown flickering in the shafts of sunlight striking through the trees.

  Remember poor Miss Bentley, jeered a warning voice in her head. She lost her reputation for a reason. You are in danger of losing yours over nothing more than a friendship.

  Lord Granton returned to the Hall to find everyone waiting impatiently for him. “Ah, there you are!” cried Sir Giles. “We were about to set off without you.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Lord Granton, fighting down a nagging feeling of boredom laced with irritation.

  “It is such a warm day that we have decided to go on the river.”

  He had a longing to say he did not want to go on the river, that all he wanted to do was lounge around and read. But he forced a smile on his face and said it sounded like a pleasant idea.

  He forced himself to converse with Annabelle and her mother as they were driven to the banks of the Avon where Sir Giles’s barge was moored. As he sipped champagne and talked to Annabelle about what a splendid fellow the major was, and he could not understand why some lady had not snapped him up long before this, Lord Granton felt that old heavy cloud of boredom settling down on him. The barge slid its slow way along the Avon, a horse pulling it. A canopy to protect them from the sun fluttered over their heads. It was just about as exciting as the drawing room at the Hall, he thought. The only advantage was that Annabelle had not brought her harp. He then realized that he had not properly explained or apologized to Frederica for his rude behavior when she had called at the Hall. He would tell her that evening—if evening ever came. How long the day seemed!

  Frederica is bored and I am bored, he thought. It is because of too much idleness, too much time to think. When this tedious visit is over, I shall return to my estates and interest myself in agriculture and stop trying to fill my days with social events, prize fights, dreary balls, and all the other curses of the social round. Time to settle down. But settling down meant a wife and children. Had he married younger, so his thoughts ran, he would have followed the pattern of finding a suitable wife with a suitable dowry. But now he wanted someone who would be a pleasant companion.

  He roused himself from his reverie to say to Annabelle, who was leaning over the side of the barge, “Do not lean too far, Miss Annabelle, or you will fall over.”

  She turned a laughing face to him. “It is quite safe. I am looking for fish.”

  She turned back and that was when the branch of a tree stretching over the water caught her and swept her overboard.

  Lady Crown screamed and fainted. Lord Granton tore off his coat and boots and jumped over the side. He swam to where Annabelle had disappeared. Dimly he heard the major calling frantically to the man leading the horse that was pulling the barge to stop. Lord Granton dived, surfaced, and dived again. The second time his fingers grasped cloth, and he seized Annabelle round the waist and swam up, gasping with relief when his head broke the surface.

  He swam to the bank where the bargee was waiting. Annabelle was pulled up and Lord Granton heaved himself onto the grassy bank after her. He stared down at her limp body and white face and then seized her arms and pumped them up and down as he had seen fishermen do once in trying to save the life of one of their friends. Water gushed from her mouth, and then she gave a faint groan and vomited up more water. The barge was now moored at the side, and Sir Giles came running toward them followed by the major.

  Lord Granton rubbed Annabelle’s wrists and in desperation slapped her face. She opened her eyes and began to cry.

  “Oh, thank God,” said
Sir Giles, who began to cry as well, as did the major, while Lord Granton glared at them.

  “Send your man for the carriage,” he shouted. “The sooner we get her home and in bed and send for the physician, the better.”

  Rugs from the barge were fetched and Annabelle’s body wrapped in them. Then the carriage arrived along the tow path, and she was lifted into it.

  Back at the Hall, Sir Giles, the major, and Lord Granton paced up and down, waiting for the verdict of the physician who was abovestairs in Annabelle’s bedchamber. At last he came down.

  “She will do very well now,” he said. “Thanks to your prompt rescue, my lord, you saved her life.”

  Sir Giles flung his arms around the embarrassed viscount, calling him a trojan, the best of men, proclaiming that God had sent him on this visit, that he would always be indebted to him, while the major dismally watched and wished with all his heart that he had been able to swim.

  The news of the rescue spread quickly from the Hall servants to the village, and so the rectory got the news by early evening. “And it is said,” declared Mrs. Hadley, “that Sir Giles believes this marriage-to-be was meant by God.”

  Frederica finally slipped away to her room. She felt very low. Lord Granton had saved a fair maiden from drowning, just like in a romance, except the fair maiden had not been Frederica. For the first time in her young life, Frederica felt bitterly and irrationally jealous. Annabelle had everything: looks, money, and now dramatic adventure.

  The result was that when she set out for the pool later that evening, she half expected he would not come to visit such a nonentity as Frederica Hadley.

  But he was already there, his face unreadable in the gloom.

  “I heard about your heroism,” said Frederica.

  “Oh, that.” They sat down together on the grass. “I never did apologize for my bearish behavior when I found you outside the Hall,” he went on.

  “Why were you so very angry with me?”

  “I forgot your age, your innocence, and our friendship. You must realize I am used to being pursued by young ladies. I am truly sorry.”

  “You will soon be married, and young ladies will have no reason to pursue you any longer, Rupert.”

  “I have no immediate plans to marry.”

  “But the whole village is talking of your heroism. Marriage to Annabelle is viewed as inevitable. It is believed that Divine Providence sent you on this visit simply to rescue Annabelle and then wed her.”

  “It is amazing how many people see the workings of Divine Providence in just about everything. The silly girl leaned too far over the edge of the barge and got caught by the branch of a tree hanging over the river and was swept into the water. She is lucky to be alive.”

  “Reports say she was dead when you pulled her from the water, but you restored her to life.”

  “Your common sense should tell you that the dead cannot be restored to life, Frederica.”

  “Barton Sub Edge has not ever heard anything more romantic. You will have to marry her now.”

  “My sweeting, I will not be coerced into marriage.”

  “All I can say is that at that ball, the Crowns are going to be one very disappointed family.”

  And then some imp prompted him to say, “And would you be a very disappointed young lady if I did propose to Annabelle?”

  Her face was a white glimmer in the darkness of the night. “Your amours are nothing to do with me,” said Frederica.

  “But as my friend, surely you have some views on the subject.”

  “Then, Rupert, may I say that I think you and Annabelle very well suited.”

  He found himself becoming angry. “And why is that?”

  “Annabelle Crown is eminently suitable. She is pretty and complacent. She is used to living in a large household. She is a trifle young for you, but age does not seem to matter in a suitable marriage.”

  “You do not think I should marry for love?”

  “Love, I think, is not just passion but involves respect and trust.”

  “You can hardly be qualified on the subject.”

  “I have my powers of observation. I do not need to be trained as a carpenter to know that a table is badly made.”

  “That comment is not original. You are paraphrasing Dr. Johnson.”

  “A worthy source.” Frederica felt sour and, yes, lonely. The lightness of their friendship seemed to have gone. He had not offered to teach her any more dances, and she was now stubbornly determined not to ask him.

  Silly little girl, thought Lord Granton.

  But both sat side by side, neither moving.

  Then he gave a reluctant laugh. “I do declare, my sweeting, we are having our first quarrel.”

  “Quarrels are for lovers.”

  “And for friends, too. If you continue to sit there in a bad temper, I will not teach you the waltz.”

  “Oh, would you do that? Would you really?” cried Frederica, leaping to her feet, all her bad temper forgotten.

  He got up as well and held out his hand. “Come here. I put my hand at your waist so. Now I will sing the melody.”

  He began to hum, breaking off occasionally to say things like, “Let me lead. Follow me. Do not look at your feet.”

  She was conscious of the warmth of that hand at her waist. She half closed her eyes and followed his steps, seeming to drift dreamily over the grass.

  He noticed she was wearing a light rose perfume, the scent of summer. He stopped at last and with a laugh wound a strand of her long silky hair around one finger.

  “How will you manage to put your hair up? Will your sisters help you?”

  “They will not need to. I have been studying articles on how to create one of the new Roman styles. Should I try to make one of the new Turkish turbans?”

  “And eclipse the bright glory of your hair? No, what you need are little pearls threaded through it.”

  “I think Mama has some. Thank you. That is a fine idea. Now I really must go.”

  “I will go first and make sure no one is about, and then you follow.” He released her hair and gave her a casual pat on the cheek and strode away.

  Frederica watched him go. She felt sad, confused, elated, all mixed in together.

  After ten minutes she made her way through the woods and across the field. She climbed over the stile and onto the road, and then stiffened. The figure of a woman was standing right in the middle of the road.

  “Who’s there?” demanded Frederica sharply.

  “Beth Judge.”

  “Oh, Beth, you startled me.” Beth Judge was a gnarled old woman who lived in one of the shabbier cottages at the end of the village. The children thought she was a witch.

  “I seed you, miss,” said Beth.

  “Well, of course you did,” said Frederica with a lightness she did not feel. “Here I am.”

  “I mean,” said Beth, coming up close, so that Frederica could smell the nasty odors of her old unwashed body, “I seed you with that there grand lord, a-dancing. What would the rector say?”

  “You won’t say anything!” cried Frederica.

  “Reckon I can keep my mouth shut—for two guineas.”

  “Two guineas.” Frederica looked at her in horror. She could not clearly see her face in the darkness, only the glitter of her malignant old eyes. “I have not got two guineas. Where on earth am I going to get a sum like that?”

  “You’d better think o’ something, missie. If I ain’t got them two golden boys by noon tomorrow, the rector gets to hear of it.”

  Frederica took to her heels and ran past Beth. What on earth was she going to do? Lord Granton might know, but how could she reach him?

  Frederica spent a sleepless night and awoke very early. And then she thought of an idea. She would go out to the henhouses and collect as many eggs as were there, put them in a basket, and take them up to Townley Hall. If her parents found out about it, she would simply say that she was in a way making amends for her bad behavior.


  She dressed in her best, such as it was. Her new gowns had not yet been made up by the dressmaker. She collected a basket from the kitchen and went out to the henhouses, disturbing some still sleepy hens and collecting warm new eggs.

  She set out for Townley Hall. The day was not yet too warm and was glorious in the sunlight. It should have been a day to be happy, not feeling guilty and frightened. She knew where her father kept his purse and could easily steal those two guineas, but somehow such an action seemed even more abhorrent than being found out.