Devonshire

by Lynne Connolly

  I laughed, too happy to worry about accommodation. “Oh, we have a couple of guest rooms. They may not be as grand as your usual rooms, but if you’re prepared to put up with us, we’ll try to manage with you.” He smiled and kissed me again, lightly this time. “I’ll enjoy it here,” he murmured, his lips close to mine. “We don’t have to be apart again, you know. Ever.”

  I caught my breath. He drew back, but kept one arm around my shoulders. “My family will arrive a week or two before the wedding, and then I’ll move out to whatever house Gervase and I find for them, but I won’t go further away from you than that. I can’t imagine Lady Hareton will want me under her feet so close to the wedding.”

  “Martha is a hospitable woman. You never saw her to advantage at the Abbey, but she loves to entertain, and her powers of organisation are formidable. She has my trousseau organised, the wedding is well under way, and she’s made James hold his alterations to the Manor back until May.”

  He caressed my back, letting his hands roam over the fabric of my gown. “I saw the difference she made to the State Rooms at the Abbey in a mere few weeks. I wouldn’t like to get in the way of any of her plans. Does she approve of me?”

  I moved into his loving touch. “I don’t think she entirely trusts you. She was pleased you signed the contract without demur, that went a long way to convince her, but—well, she cares for me, and she wants me to be happy.”

  “As do I. And I signed that contract because I haven’t the least intention of breaking it.” His voice softened to a caress. “And I, too, want you to be happy, so I had it made so you can break it off at any point you wish.”

  “Even if I didn’t want you any more?”

  “Even that. If you were unhappy with me, I couldn’t bear it. I’m not sure it wouldn’t be better to see you happy with someone else.”

  I lifted my head to look at him, into the depths of those startlingly blue eyes. “I’ve never met anyone like you. All this is new, the people, all the fuss. If I had married a year or two ago, only the county would have been remotely interested in me. Now fashionable society wants to beat a path to our door, and I seem to be the only one unable to cope with it all.”

  He pulled me close. “My poor love.” He kissed my forehead. “All you have to remember is I love you, and I intend to take you away from this when it’s over. Let my parents and your sisters have their day, and then we can have ours.” He let me go, and dipped his hand in his coat pocket. “By the way, I thought you should have something to cheer up your mourning dress.” He pulled out a long box and gave it to me.

  Inside, gleaming with their own life, lay a string of perfectly matched pearls. Their bluish glow gave them a world of their own, serene in their own importance. I touched one, with the tip of a finger. It was cold. I looked back at him. He watched me, waiting for my reaction. “Oh Richard, they’re beautiful.”

  “Here. Allow me.”

  He lifted the pearls out of the box. I felt the warmth of his hand when he clasped them around my neck Then he took me to the mirror over the sideboard, positioned me in front of it, and stood behind me, frowning while he judged the effect. “They look good against your skin. And you have dark hair. I’ve always thought pearls compliment brunettes best.” I studied us both in the mirror. We were an incongruous couple.

  He was so fashionable, so much of his class, dressed in expensive, exquisite perfection and I was of little consequence except locally until last year. He bore himself like a prince, unconsciously graceful.

  My clothes were plain, dowdy mourning clothes. If I’d been expecting him to arrive that day, I would have put on one of the newer mourning gowns. He was every inch the man of fashion, at his ease in it as I thought I never would be. I didn’t deserve him, and I might not be able to keep him. Fear and doubt filled me to overflowing. “Oh, Richard, are you sure?”

  He met my gaze in the mirror. “Oh yes.” He dropped his hands and took a step away from me so I could only see my own reflection. “What do you see?”

  I shrugged, but tried to be honest. “An ordinary, not young woman, tired. The sort of woman you would have passed in the street and not looked at twice, if we hadn’t found ourselves in the extraordinary situation we did last year.” I avoided any self-pity and tried to tell him the truth as I saw it.

  “My turn.” He came up behind me again and put his hands on my shoulders, turning me away from the mirror to face him. “Tired I would agree with, but nothing else, so I shall have to make sure you get more sleep. Five and twenty isn’t on the shelf, my love.” He regarded me steadily, his gaze sweeping my face. “The young don’t appeal to me the way you do. You have far more about you than a seventeen-year-old, fresh from the schoolroom. You have a well-informed mind; no doubt that sickly brother of yours helped there.” I remembered the hours I had spent keeping Ian company while he read, or I read to him in one of his many childhood illnesses, and was forced to agree. But I said nothing, just listened to him. “It gives you character. Your face is far more interesting than the blank canvasses presented to me season after season for the last ten years, as soon as I returned from the Grand Tour.” He lifted his hand and caressed my cheek. “You have an elusive quality all your own, something I’ve never encountered before. Elegance, poise, serenity, and when I’ve finished with you, you’ll have style. No one will ever pass you by, unless you wish it.”

  Did he mean to turn me into something I wasn’t, something I was uncomfortable with? For him, I would do even that. Anything, for him.

  He looked at me closely, no guile, no fashionable languor here, and his face relaxed. “But apart from all that, the first time I saw you I fell in love with you. I found it confusing, and I tried hard to combat it. When I got to know you a little better, I knew I had no reason to fight against it. So I surrendered, and I’ve not regretted it. If you were Miss Golightly of Devonshire, as, let me remind you, you were when I first saw you, I would still have moved everything in my path to win you. You know I’m not particularly handsome, not particularly special.” He ignored my protests. “I’ve made myself something else because I wanted to. You know some of the reasons for that, and you’ll probably get to know others but, my love, it’s all in the mind. Take the fancy clothes, jewels and wigs away and what are you left with?”

  “A remarkable man. Loyal, intelligent, handsome.” He threw his head back and laughed at that. “And the man I love.”

  He folded his arms around me again, drawing me to his heat. “Enough philosophy. Kiss me once more, and then we’ll go and join your excellent family.” I did as he asked, satisfied for the present, happy to feel him close, to be loved as never before.

  My previous suitor, Steven Drury, was far more handsome than Richard, but Richard had something Steven could never possess. Presence, self possession, confidence. Everyone looked at him when he entered a room. He had an energy people found exciting. I’d seen it operate almost without his knowledge, the way people turned to stare at him, as they had done earlier in the village.

  The door to the breakfast parlour burst open, and I tried to break away in embarrassment, but he held me close and turned us both in his own time. He kept one arm about my waist, firm and sure.

  It was the hope of the house, Martha and James’s oldest son, Walter, at nine so full of confidence and bravado that even short doses of him were tiring. He had been dressed in his best breeches and waistcoat, probably when Richard and Gervase had come to the village to meet us, but his fair hair tumbled about his face in unruly curls, and a small smudge of indefinable dirt marred the soft cheek. Walter attracted dirt. “Oh, I beg your pardon. I should have knocked. Mama told me to knock.” He didn’t sound in the least sorry and I guessed the omission was deliberate.

  “So you should.” Richard’s voice held a stern edge, but he wasn’t really angry. I heard the softness beneath. “Did your mama send you to fetch us?”

  “Yes. Are you Lord Strang, who’s going to marry my Auntie Rose?”

  “I
should hope so. If I saw anyone else with his arm about her waist I would be severely displeased.”

  Walter laughed. “Even me?”

  “Can you put your arm about her waist?”

  “Oh yes.” Walter had all the overweening confidence of the child. “Auntie Rose is tall for a woman, Mama says, but I’m getting tall too.” He would have demonstrated, but Richard kept his arm firmly around me and wouldn’t let him.

  “Your Auntie Rose is not to be manhandled. Except by me.” He glanced at me, his intimate smile warming me. “Now, shall we go upstairs?” He released me, took my hand instead, and we followed Walter out of the room and upstairs.

  We went into the drawing room hand in hand, but he dropped mine to individually greet every member of my extensive family. I went to join Gervase who, having already made his bows, watched the performance from a seat by the window.

  My Lord Strang was supremely accomplished in social situations, but a family gathering like this presented a different challenge. However, the informality didn’t upset his sangfroid, and one by one, he was presented to my family. First he met my brother Ian, tall, thin and ascetic, and then his opposites, my niece and my other nephew, Mary and Frederick. Martha always said Frederick was the noisiest child in the world, but we loved him dearly.

  Richard accepted a glass of wine from Martha and set himself to charm them. I sat next to Gervase. “I hope they haven’t tired you too much.”

  “Not at all,” he replied, but I guessed this was not his preferred occupation. He watched the children warily. I don’t think Gervase understood children, but many people don’t, despite having spent several years as one.

  It became clear that my sister Ruth admired Richard greatly. She hardly took her eyes off him, watching the gracefulness of his movements, taking in every detail of his dress. He pretended not to notice, and I was pleased and relieved at that. He was perfectly capable of taking Ruth apart, delicately dissecting admiration until it became hate or fear. I had seen it once during my visit to his parents, and it showed me a side of him I had not seen before, and was glad I’d not seen up to that point. It would have made me afraid of him.

  Richard was perfectly capable of depressing Ruth’s admiration more gently if it became irksome to him. However, I saw nothing but good humour when he raised his glass to me from across the room. I smiled back to show my amusement at his predicament. Noisy children surrounded him, children who until now had grown up in a not particularly remarkable house as well-loved children from a close-knit background. In any case, Martha would send them to the nursery soon. When I looked across at her I saw she was watching me closely while I watched him. I hoped she saw what she wanted to see.

  Chapter Four

  INCREASINGLY NERVOUS about the dinner Tom had invited us to, I spoke to Martha. This wouldn’t be a normal occasion, when I could relax in the company of my peers. They wanted to meet Richard and assess him.

  “I hope they won’t think I’m putting myself above them. Flaunting my new found position in their faces. That would be unbelievably crass of me. Do you think they believe that?”

  Martha looked up from her stitching. We were alone in the little parlour, because I needed her to speak her mind with no other person present. Her grey eyes were calm. “You know what the people here are like. There’s nowhere better than Devonshire. They pity anyone who doesn’t live here, and they think themselves the equal of anyone alive.”

  She made me laugh. “No one is good enough for a Devonshire girl.”

  “Precisely.” Calmly, she set another stitch.

  “I never thought of leaving here before. Or of going so far afield.”

  “You would do that whether you married or not. We’ll go to London in the autumn while this house is rebuilding. Our world is growing larger.”

  I knew she was right. “Richard is my home now. If he’d been the son of a squire hereabouts, I would have taken him, and then I could have carried on almost the same.”

  “If he were the son of the squire he wouldn’t be the person he is. He’s a great lord, from one of the most distinguished families in the country. He frightens most people.” She kept her attention on her work.

  “Frightens?” I echoed, but then I understood. His flawless exterior intimidated, and it still awed me sometimes until he smiled at me. “He doesn’t frighten you, does he, Martha?”

  She lifted her head and met my gaze levelly. “Yes. Anyone who can hide their true nature as completely as he does is capable of anything.”

  I’d only known Richard for six months. I believed he’d let me in without reserve, but the only guarantee I had was the way I felt about him.

  I DRESSED WITH SOME care that evening, knowing all eyes would be upon us. I’d done my best, but we were still in mourning, forbidden large gatherings and dancing for another week to come. I wore grey, as usual, but it was brocade, and I put it with a watered tabby petticoat, a white embroidered stomacher and of course, my new pearls.

  Richard came down to the hall and bowed to me with a flourish and a gleam of amusement. “Will I do?”

  He looked exquisite, as usual. His lilac coat and waistcoat were laced with silver and embroidered by fairies it seemed, so delicate was the stitching. The linen at his neck and the lace ruffles of his shirt were starched to perfection. He wore the latest in low-heeled shoes and everywhere lay the cold glitter of diamonds, from the single stone at his neck to the buckles on his knees and his shoes.

  Gervase bowed to me, but his aspect was graver. He wore impeccable dark green brocade, trimmed with gold lace.

  “You both look wonderful,” I assured them. “You must know you do. Do you try to look different, or does it come naturally to you to demonstrate in as many ways as possible how a fashionable man can appear to advantage?”

  They exchanged a laughing glance. Not many people would have dared ask them, but I was allowed into the world they shared, though it was not my birth which allowed me such a privilege.

  Richard held his arm out for me. I rested my hand on it, enjoying the thrill I felt whenever I touched him. “You haven’t powdered. It’s charming.”

  “I tend to avoid it. My hair is so dark the powder never takes properly, and the dead white doesn’t suit me. I have to put up with it for more formal occasions.”

  “In London more and more ladies in the younger set are leaving off powder. You should set a fashion.” The idea I should be a leader of fashion made me laugh, but he gave me a mock severe frown. “As my wife, you will be looked to for a certain style. You will set it perfectly.”

  I had no patience with such things. “They’ll have to take me as I am.”

  He laughed, his frown completely gone. “Then that, my sweet, will be your style.”

  Lizzie joined us. I was firmly convinced my sister could wear sacking and outshine everyone else in the room, but she took a keen interest in fashion. Tonight she appeared in spectacular black. She had lightened the colour with white, as we were in half mourning, but the dramatic effect only heightened her beauty, the fair skin and gleaming bright blonde hair, shining against the stark black of her gown.

  Dinner was at four, so carriages were ordered for three. The Skerrits’ house wasn’t far from ours, and normally we walked, but we couldn’t think of it on this occasion. We were far too grand to walk.

  Fascination lit Gervase’s handsome features when he saw Peacock’s. It was nearer to the coast than our Manor house, and much older. Gervase studied every part of the frontage. “It must date back centuries.” He didn’t take his eager gaze off it for one minute.

  Peacock’s was one of the few half-timbered buildings in Devonshire, with stone mullioned windows, but I had known it since I was tiny. I was so used to it I didn’t really notice its beauty any more.

  The entrance led to the oldest part of the house. I went in leaning on Richard’s arm, with Gervase on my other side. Gervase caught his breath. The Great Hall was old, the timbered roof soaring above our heads in stripes
of light and dark. A large oriel window decorated the end wall, still bearing its stained glass, sending streams of bright colour on to the stone flagged floor. A fire had been set in the generous fireplace, so the hall was reasonably warm. I was thankful to see it, because beautiful though the hall was, it got cold at this time of year.

  Most of the guests had already arrived and they watched us come in, giving us the kind of attention I still had to get used to. At one time I might have entered unobserved, and taken my place by Martha at one side of the room, but those days were gone.

  Once we’d greeted Sir George and Lady Skerrit, Tom and Georgiana, I took Richard and Gervase around the hall, introducing them. Everyone looked at them, and none at me, but that was only to be expected, as they had known me always, but never on the arm of anyone as spectacular as Richard. I ignored the speculative stares, and I knew as if they were speaking what they must be thinking. Why was someone like Richard with someone like me? I was far from answering that myself.

  Some of the girls here had even pitied me. Miss Eustacia Terry, the daughter of a squire a few miles off didn’t like me, and sometimes went out of her way to taunt me. She looked pretty tonight, in a pale blue, low-cut gown, which suited her light colouring admirably. I had thought I would enjoy my triumph of attracting one of England’s most eligible bachelors, but to my surprise I found it mattered little. Perhaps it was because Miss Terry’s opinion had never meant much to me, so it didn’t mean much now.

  Richard bowed over her hand and to my surprise, Eustacia simpered. I’d never seen her do that before, so it must be a new trick. Miss Terry was accounted one of our local beauties and she tried to play all the new games she could find. I wanted to see her try her tricks out on Richard.

  I moved back to stand with Lizzie, and together we sipped our wine and watched the show.