A Lord Apart

by Jane Ashford

  “But would my sterling qualities have been so evident, dancing at a stuffy ball or trotting sedately through the park?”

  Her expression eased. “Possibly not. And you might not have appreciated mine. I’d have been just another deb.”

  “Sylphlike,” said Daniel.

  “What?”

  “I never pursued acquaintance with the wispy, sylphlike girls. Can’t abide their simpering.”

  “I’m not wispy! And I have never simpered in my life.”

  “I know that. But I wouldn’t have from across a drawing room.” It was perfectly true. He’d have turned away. And that certainty made Daniel’s blood run cold. “I never would have found my mother’s notebooks either, hidden like that. Or the letters she wrote your mother. Wouldn’t have known anything about them.” And he would have gone on thinking that his parents were simply selfish, shallow people.

  “You might have come upon the letters.”

  Daniel shook his head. “With so many other papers to sort through? No. And I was on the point of giving up on those. I’d have lived like my forebears, half-buried in fusty records, making a mad search for the right document when a need arose.”

  “You would have gotten a new agent,” she said, as if to defend him.

  “Yes. But he wouldn’t have noticed the trunk linings or looked through my mother’s personal correspondence. Too much else to do.”

  Penelope nodded. “I suppose I would have accepted an offer from some acquaintance of the Pratts.”

  “The Pratts?”

  “Mrs. Pratt was to sponsor me for my first season,” she replied.

  “That sour old biddy?” He was newly outraged. “You didn’t mention that at the theater.”

  “It was no longer relevant.” Penelope grimaced. “She used to be much kinder. But I would have met the gentlemen she presented to me.”

  “I certainly would not have been one of them,” said Daniel.

  They stared at each other. Another future opened out before them, like a chasm yawning at their feet in an earthquake, revealing dark depths. Daniel wanted to clutch her to him. The people around them seemed to recede, as if they stood alone together.

  “The dreadful things that happen make you what you are,” said Penelope.

  “Like tempered steel. Or porcelain that has passed through the fire.”

  “How poetic!”

  “You don’t know everything about me yet.”

  “But I have years to learn.”

  “All the years I’m allotted, and all that I possess. Which is more than any silly fellow presented to you by the Pratts.”

  Penelope knew he didn’t mean his title or fortune. Adversity had given him depths, as it had her, perhaps. “We’ll make a life together, even with disasters.” She looked again and discovered that the agents were gone.

  “Not alone,” he answered. “Precisely.”

  She had felt so alone, and now she didn’t. “I love you so much.”

  “And I love you with all my heart.”

  Penelope felt a qualm. “I’m still worried that you’re giving up—”

  “Nothing that I value. And I’ve gained far more.”

  She took him at his word, but even in the midst of her happiness, she was left with a niggling fear that one day he would find social position more important than he did in this moment.

  “Health to the bride and groom,” called a booming voice on the other side of the yard. “And on top of that, our sympathies to the poor man, who’ll soon find he’s living under the cat’s foot.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Jem Fallon,” said Dora Foyle. “Any more than you can help, that is. You never could hold your drink.”

  “See there?” answered Mr. Fallon, raising his glass higher and winking.

  Daniel and Penelope joined the general laughter.

  Epilogue

  Lord Macklin arrived at Frithgerd four days later with his valet but not Tom. “I’ve brought a confidant of Castlereagh’s with me,” he said when Daniel and Penelope greeted him. “He thought it best to stay at the inn until we’d spoken and he could dismiss those two agents who made such a mull of things.” The earl’s blue eyes glinted. “I understand they’ve been given a new posting at the very back of beyond. You won’t be seeing them again.” He turned to Daniel. “He’s also come to take charge of your mother’s notebooks.”

  “On my terms?” Daniel asked.

  “Yes. I’m sorry about the delay. It took some time to get in to see Castlereagh. He’s a busy man.”

  “I appreciate your efforts in the matter,” Daniel said.

  “What efforts?” asked Penelope. “What terms? Is this the plan you mentioned?”

  Daniel nodded as Macklin turned to her. The earl held out a square of paper. Penelope looked at Daniel, who shrugged his ignorance. Taking the card, she scanned it and gasped. At Daniel’s inquiring look, she said, “This is an invitation to a ball in my honor. At the Castlereaghs’.”

  “A token,” Macklin said. “Proof, if you require more than Castlereagh’s personal word and his promise as Foreign Secretary.”

  “Those are certainly good enough,” Daniel said. “Though it’s good to have something tangible as well.”

  Penelope stared at the bit of paper. Lady Castlereagh was a leader of the haut ton. Her stamp of approval guaranteed social success. Seeing her own name in such a context seemed like a dream to Penelope. “I don’t understand.”

  “In exchange for me freely giving up the notebooks to the Foreign Office, I asked that the Castlereaghs…repair your social standing. With invitations to parties and a show of friendship and acceptance. Lady Castlereagh is perfectly suited to ease your way into society.”

  Penelope stared at him, then at Macklin.

  “I reviewed your circumstances with Castlereagh,” said the latter. “He was shocked at the way you’d been treated. He doesn’t always agree with Sidmouth, you know, though they are both in the government.”

  “This was your doing?” Penelope said, still trying to take it in.

  The older man shook his head. “I merely carried out your husband’s request. The idea was all his.”

  She turned to Daniel.

  “You worried so about society,” he said simply.

  “You said you didn’t care.”

  “But you did. And that Pratt creature made me mad as fire when she snubbed you. I hope she sees every moment of your success. From the outside.”

  “I never expected anything like this,” murmured Penelope. She knew it was a silly comment, but she was feeling overwhelmed.

  “The government rather owed you something after the way you were treated,” said Macklin.

  She gazed at the older man. “I’m not sure you always thought so.”

  “Once I got to know you, I saw that you were the just the woman to make Daniel happy.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Daniel.

  Penelope turned to him. Her eyes blazed with love, and she saw it reflected back with equal strength from her husband’s gaze.

  With his customary tact, Lord Macklin slipped out of the room.

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  One

  Roger Berwick, Marquess of Chatton, urged his horse to greater speed on the firm sand at the verge of the waves. A good gallop could always relieve his feelings. And late July was surely the best time for it here at the edge of the North Sea. The Northumberland wind still had a bite, but the sun was warm on his back, and there was no sign of rain. The stone pile of Chatton Castle, with all its attendant responsibilities, receded behind him. The s
hore stretched ahead. For an hour or so he could be solitary and carefree.

  And so, of course, a figure on horseback appeared ahead, riding toward him. The mount’s glossy gray coat and the rider’s neat silhouette told him who it was. Roger muttered a curse. His luck was out today. “You’re on my land,” he said when their paths intersected.

  “Not according to my father,” replied a haughty young lady in a fashionable riding habit. “He would say that you’re on his.”

  “The deuce. Is this that stretch?” Roger looked around and realized that he’d come farther than he’d noticed. He was on a piece of land at the edge of his estate that was the subject of a border dispute, started by his father and hers some years ago. The ham-handed way the two men had tried to settle the matter had roused a world of troubles.

  “You know it is,” she said.

  Roger looked at her. In one sense he’d known Fenella Fairclough all his life. They’d grown up on neighboring estates and met at various children’s parties in their youth. In another sense, however, he hardly knew her at all. A female had no right to change so much between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three, Roger thought. She’d been a gangling tongue-tied girl when she left for the north five years ago, after the fiasco of their rejected betrothal. She’d been fearful and retiring, the sort of female one was surprised to hear had been present at a soiree or assembly. And she’d come back the opposite of all those things—forthright, impatient, alarmingly astute. Not to mention far more curvaceous. The first time he’d seen her again, on her return to the neighborhood, he hadn’t recognized Fenella.

  She had the same pale red hair and blue eyes, the same pretty oval face, but the expression was far different, and the words that issued from that full-lipped mouth could sting. How well he knew that! “You’re out alone, without even a groom?” he asked. She’d scarcely ridden in their youth, finding horses large and intimidating as he remembered it. The gray she was on now would have terrified her then.

  “As are you,” she said.

  “A completely different case,” Roger said.

  Her eyes flashed. “I suppose I can ride as I like on our own land.”

  “Hah!” It was a distinct hit. Almost amusing, if circumstances had been different. “You’re all too ready to ride anywhere, even through a tempest.”

  Exasperation tightened her jaw. “Please tell me that you’re not going to start with this again. I thought you’d given up that stupid story at last.”

  He had. And he rather wished he hadn’t referred to it now. But the visit to the Crenshaws had kicked up all sorts of inner turmoil. The ranting of Arabella’s parents, particularly her mother, in London had brought everything back. Coupled with his tendency to utter the wrong word at the wrong time, it had tripped him up.

  “I am very tired of telling you that expedition was Arabella’s idea not mine, Chatton. And that I did my best to stop her.”

  “Splendid. I’m tired of hearing it.”

  “You don’t hear. That’s the problem.” Miss Fairclough sighed. “Can we not leave this behind us? You haven’t mentioned it in months.”

  Easy for her to talk of moving forward, Roger thought. She didn’t have to face Mrs. Crenshaw. An irritable sound escaped him.

  “You are the most intractable man,” said Miss Fairclough.

  “Intractable is it? Did you learn such words north of the border?”

  “I learned to express my opinion.”

  “No matter how misguided. Typical from someone whose mother was a Scot.”

  Her lips twitched. “Have we descended to childish insults? Very well. Your mother is a soft southerner.”

  “You like my mother! And she’s always disgustingly kind to you.”

  Miss Fairclough’s face softened. “She is kind. Though hardly disgusting.”

  “Oh, you can do no wrong in her eyes.”

  “On the contrary.”

  Their eyes met. Roger could tell that she was remembering, as was he, that his mother had wanted him to marry her. When she was a biddable girl, not the waspish young lady she’d become. Roger didn’t recall his mother’s reasons. He knew they hadn’t been related to the cold merger of properties that their fathers had proposed. They’d both rejected that scheme, five years ago. And of course they’d been right. Absolutely right.

  “I must go,” said Miss Fairclough.

  Strictly speaking, he ought to offer to escort her. But Roger didn’t care. He wanted his solitude back. And he knew she wouldn’t welcome his company. He settled for a bow from the saddle and watched her ride away. Really, she’d become a bruising rider in her years away.

  Fenella urged her horse toward home, fuming, as she nearly always was after an encounter with Chatton. She was so tired of hearing about the notorious ride into the storm that had brought on his wife’s fever and led to her death. His position was quite unjust. The expedition really had been entirely Arabella’s idea. Fenella had tried to talk her out of going. But the newly minted Marchioness of Chatton had not been a persuadable person. Indeed, Arabella been spoiled and stubborn. Add discontent to that, and you had a volatile mixture.

  Silently, Fenella acknowledged that she hadn’t liked Arabella at first. But she’d begun to feel sorry for a girl of nineteen taken so far from her home, discovering that she didn’t like the windswept coast of Northumberland or, indeed, her new husband. Fenella had watched the newcomer discover that a title didn’t make up for a lack of common interests or clashing temperaments.

  With Fenella’s sympathies roused, and Arabella very lonely, they’d become friends of a sort, despite Arabella’s volatile nature. Wistful tales of London revealed that Arabella’s parents, particularly her mother, had engineered the marriage, intent on social advancement. Fenella suspected that they’d forced Arabella to relinquish a prior attachment, over which she sometimes wept. For the Crenshaws, Chatton’s position had been everything, his personality irrelevant. And so two young people had been yoked together with little chance of happiness, as far as Fenella could judge. It was sad. And none of her business, of course. Indeed, her history with Chatton made Arabella’s confidences awkward. Yet she couldn’t have rejected her, Fenella thought as she rode. It would have been cruel.

  Three and a half years with her Scottish grandmother had taught Fenella a good deal about kindness. Which was ironic on the face of it, because many thought her grandmother a terrifying old lady. Grandmamma came from a long line of border lords who had harried the English and feuded with each other for centuries. She was as comfortable holding a pistol as a teacup. And she’d explained to Fenella that kindness could be quite a complicated exercise, requiring thought and care.

  The time with her grandmother had made her feel older than her years, Fenella thought. Certainly more than a few years older than Arabella. Fenella often wondered what might have come to Arabella, and indeed Chatton, if she hadn’t died so young. But that would never be known.

  On this melancholy note, Fenella reached her home and turned to the stables, where she left her mount. Looping up the long skirts of her riding habit, she walked to the side door of the great brick pile where she’d grown up. She’d missed Clough House while she was gone. Yet she wasn’t entirely glad to be back.

  A housemaid met her on the threshold, as if she’d been waiting there. “The master’s asking for you, miss.”

  “I’ll just change out of my habit,” said Fenella.

  “He’s fretting.”

  Fenella adjusted her grip on her skirts and started for the stairs.

  Her father’s illness had changed him. He still growled and demanded, but the tone was querulous now. And too often bewildered. It had startled Fenella when she’d been called back home to oversee his care.

  Fenella was struck again by the irony of the situation as she walked up the stairs. Her two sisters had always gotten on better with Papa, mainly becaus
e he’d made no secret of his bitter disappointment that Fenella wasn’t born a son. “Third time the charm,” he’d used to mutter. “Only it wasn’t.” He’d shadowed the last years of her mother’s life over this supposed failing, and he’d seemed to feel that Fenella owed him extra obedience to make up for the lapse. And so he’d thought to marry her off like a medieval magnate disposing of his chattel. Well, he hadn’t managed that.

  But Greta and Nora had families of their own to occupy them and had happened to settle far away. Everyone had thought it Fenella’s duty to come home, and so she had. Part of her had welcomed the chance. She didn’t wish to be forever estranged from her father.

  How did it feel, Fenella wondered, to have the defiant daughter in charge of his sickroom? What if she’d accepted one of the offers of marriage she’d received in Scotland? Where would he be then? But they never discussed such things. They were not a family who spoke of their feelings, she thought as she entered his room. Before her stay with Grandmamma, she’d hardly recognized what her feelings were. “Hello Papa,” she said.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Out riding.”

  “Enjoying yourself, eh? Using my horses. With no thought for me lying neglected here.”

  In fact, Fenella’s mount was her own, a gift from her grandmother, though the mare was eating the estate’s fodder, of course. “On the contrary, I made certain Simpson was with you.”

  “That doddering excuse for a valet! I sent him away.”

  Simpson had been with her father for as long as Fenella could remember. He was probably hovering behind the dressing room door right now in case he might be needed. Her father really was the most difficult of patients. “Shall I read to you?” she asked.

  “Pah!” He shoved at his coverlet. “I want to be up out of this damned bed.” He tried to rise, and re-discovered the weakness in his right side, which he forgot from one day to the next. The drag of his arm and leg kept him from the outdoor pursuits he loved. And the vagueness of his mind made other favorite amusements, like cards, vastly frustrating for all involved. The doctor had said that he would probably never recover from the bout of apoplexy that had felled him. Fenella didn’t blame him for cursing. But that didn’t make tending him any easier.