A Lady of True Distinction

by Grace Burrowes

  He had the sense she was small-talked out—he certainly was—and even fatigued after having stood up for nearly every set. The musicians set a slow, lullaby tempo, and the relatively few couples on the floor swung into the pattern.

  Thorne liked to dance, and as an earl’s son, he’d been taught early and well how to partner a lady. Margaret was taller than most women, and thus dancing with her was more pleasure than duty.

  “Tired?” Thorne asked as the fiddles lilted in close harmony.

  “Quite. You?”

  “I might be late to services tomorrow.” The revelers who’d failed to exercise caution at the punchbowl would stay home with megrims, head colds, and other vague ailments. “May I ask you something, Margaret?”

  “Mmm?”

  She hadn’t objected to his use of her given name. That was progress, though she might not have noticed that familiarity, which was… not progress.

  “Why did you refuse to share your herbal recipes with me, then send me one the same day?”

  “Might we discuss that later?”

  Fine idea, when twirling lazily down the floor with her was such a pleasant way to end the evening.

  “Shall I call on you?”

  She stared at his cravat, which was doubtless no longer the subtle tribute to fashion that Valerian had tied for him hours ago.

  “I walked here with the Dinwiddies,” she said.

  Such was Thorne’s preoccupation with maintaining a proper distance from his partner—and no more than a proper distance—that her inference took a moment to sort out.

  “I will gladly walk you home,” he said. “I’m sure Oak and Valerian can find their way to Dorning Hall without me.”

  They’d learned years ago not to bring a coach to the assembly unless the weather required it. A toddle home by moonlight helped clear the head and prepare the body for rest. Besides, the distance was less than two miles, and hitching up the coach for such a short jaunt was a ridiculous imposition on the staff.

  “That will save the Dinwiddies having to escort me up my driveway.”

  A good half mile, that drive.

  Thorne let the rest of the dance pass without conversation and focused on enjoying closeness to a woman who fit him bodily and who didn’t feel compelled to chatter or ask what he’d heard from the earl in Town. Casriel was a conscientious correspondent, but also newly married. The earl’s younger brothers heard little from him besides admonitions to get the herbal business on solid footing sooner rather than later.

  The music came to a close. Thorne bowed, Margaret sank into a deep curtsey, and as Thorne raised her up by the hand, he was struck again by Oak’s observation about her beauty. She was a strawberry blonde, not the most fashionable hair color. She was blue-eyed, which again wasn’t particularly remarkable on an Englishwoman. Her curves were subtle, and yet… she was attractive.

  Some of her allure was her scent, which still tempted Thorne to discreet sniffing hours after she’d arrived at the assembly. Some of it was her manner. Margaret Summerfield didn’t indulge in the touches intended to cause a man to notice her. No mannerisms with her fan, no affectations with her gloves, shawls, or parasols. She didn’t titter, giggle, laugh, or raise her voice.

  She was a quietly fetching woman, and she’d invited him to escort her home.

  The evening was mild by the standards of Dorset in early spring, and the moon was still well up in the sky. The way home was easy to see, the roads dry, and for the first part of the journey, the Dinwiddie offspring provided steady chatter that gradually slowed.

  “We’ll bid you good night,” Mrs. Dinwiddie said at the foot of Margaret’s drive. “Ralph, give me your arm. I vow I am too old for these entertainments.”

  “Mama, you say that at every assembly,” one of the daughters remarked.

  “And I echo that sentiment, being several years Mrs. Dinwiddie’s senior,” Mr. Dinwiddie replied, giving his wife his arm. He bowed to Margaret, winked at Thorne, and led his brood on down the lane.

  “I love this time of year,” Margaret said. “The world is waking up, even at night.”

  “The work is expanding to exceed the available hours of daylight,” Thorne countered. “Now will you answer my question?”

  Margaret set a slow pace up the drive as the Dinwiddies’ chatter faded on the night air.

  “The recipe I sent you was not mine, but it’s a good, simple formula. The scent remains fixed for years, which isn’t always the case.”

  “A scent can change over time?” This was not exactly news to Thorne, but also not something he’d considered. “Do scents ever need time to improve?”

  “Sometimes a recipe needs time to mature, as spirits acquire flavor by aging in the right barrels.”

  Which raised another consideration. “Is the vessel used to store the concoction also a consideration?” Ye gods, this was growing complicated.

  “Of course. If everything from wine to whiskey to brandy is affected by the wood chosen for the storage barrels, why would you expect a perfume, say, to behave any differently?”

  “I don’t drink perfume.”

  “Glass or ceramic is usually a safe bet.”

  “I cannot afford bets, Margaret. When it comes to this botanical business, my family cannot afford bets.”

  The manor house loomed around the next curve, towering maples casting it in moon shadow. The trees weren’t entirely leafed out, and Thorne wondered if new leaves had a scent Margaret could detect.

  “I don’t understand, Mr. Dorning. Cannot afford in what sense?”

  “My family calls me Thorne, or Hawthorne if they’re being peevish. My brothers and I have been charged by the earl with turning the vast botanical riches of Dorning Hall into a profitable concern. We have raw materials in quantity, thanks to Papa’s avocation, but Grey fails to realize that every large estate has many of those same ingredients.”

  “Is the earldom in difficulties?”

  Conversations held by moonlight had a confessional quality, though Thorne would rather have seen Margaret’s expression when she posed that question. He trusted her discretion, but what answer was she expecting?

  “My father was not a sound manager, though neither was he a profligate spender. He focused on his botany and expected the land rents to cover our expenses, as they have for centuries. Peace on the Continent has changed much, though, and Casriel knows little of complex commerce. Every street corner in London already has an apothecary shop with fully stocked shelves. Wedging our way onto those same shelves, when all we have to offer is lavender water and chamomile lotion, will not be quick or easy.”

  “Can you open your own shop?”

  “That will take money, as will creating the products to ship, as will getting them to London. I had hoped…”

  He’d hoped not to talk business all the way up the drive, for one thing.

  “You had hoped to bring some unique products to the equation, a few spectacularly impressive scents or soaps.”

  “Well, yes, except I know more about how to shear a fractious ewe than I do about what constitutes a spectacularly impressive scent. The fragrance you’re wearing is lovely.”

  She slipped her arm free of his. “Orange blossom isn’t that unusual.”

  “But you aren’t wearing the typical orange blossom scent. You’ve tinkered with it somehow, and the result is richer without being heavier.”

  “You say the nicest things, Mr. Dorning, but I have lost my recipes. I’m sorry.”

  She was sorry—the reluctance in her voice was genuine—but she was also being untruthful. A woman kept her favorite recipes in her head, at least some of them.

  “What if I brought you some recipes to look over?” he said. “Could you advise me as to the probable results?”

  She walked along beside him as the quiet deepened. The moon was past its zenith, the trees closer to the house darkened the way, and yet, Thorne was in no hurry to wish her good night.

  “Your family expects you to m
ake this venture successful, don’t they?” she asked.

  “I expect myself to make the venture successful. My brothers are good fellows, and they each bring something to the table. Oak can design beautiful labels, Ash is a very competent accountant, Valerian knows fashion and fashionable people, and Grey, as the earl, gives us a certain cachet.”

  “Cachet does not create a popular product. What of your youngest brother, Sycamore?”

  “He has his hands full with a fancy club, though he can find everything wrong with any suggestion the rest of us make.” Fancy club being a euphemism for a high-class gaming hell.

  Margaret led him to a bench situated beneath one of the maples immediately before the house. “In the first place,” she said, taking a seat, “I’d focus on men’s fragrances rather than women’s. The market for ladies’ products is full of fancy French nonsense, and ladies are seldom as free with their coin as men can be. Then too, a man’s product is expected to cost more than its feminine variant.”

  Thorne sat as well, not because the evening was pleasant and he was in the company of a woman he was considering courting, but because those basic facts hadn’t occurred to him, and he’d been wrestling with Grey’s brilliant proposition for months.

  “Focus on men’s products?”

  “You are the Dorning brothers, aren’t you? Why wouldn’t you make products for men? You are men, and you use scents, soaps, pomades, colognes, and so forth. What you know about women’s products would probably fill a teaspoon. Then too, your father probably chose plant specimens from a male perspective, not for your mother and sisters.”

  “How does one gather herbs from a male perspective?”

  “Say you are an older fellow with thinning hair.” Margaret untied her bonnet and set it beside her on the bench. “You will use your lavender oil, cedar, thyme, and rosemary to create a salve to treat baldness or to make sachets for a man’s wardrobe. If you are a lady who tends to have a flushed or choleric complexion, then that lavender will be better used in a skin tonic. Your father was likely more concerned with baldness than women’s ailments, and his herbal will reflect that.”

  Thorne resisted running a hand through his hair. “There is a cure for baldness?”

  “Not a cure, a treatment, and as with all treatments, results will vary.”

  Ye gods, a treatment for baldness. “To be honest, I’d thought the market for fragrances broader than the apothecary market.”

  “Meaning people will spend more money to look and smell beautiful than to be healthy. You are probably right, especially in London. Lord, I’m tired.”

  “That is a polite reminder that I’m keeping you out when the hour grows late,” Thorne said, rising. “I’ll see you to your door.”

  “Please sit for a moment, Mr. Dorning.”

  Hawthorne. Please call me Hawthorne. He sat.

  “Medicinals are unpredictable,” Margaret said. “I suggest you leave them to the apothecaries and quacks. In my experience, very few patent remedies are worth a farthing. If you’d like me to look over some scents intended for men’s soaps, pomades, or colognes, I am willing to do that. I can suggest herbals that include recipes of that nature, and I can explain how to follow the recipes.”

  “I will accept that generous offer, and on behalf of my family, thank you.”

  “I do have a request.”

  “Name it.”

  “You will not associate me in any public way with your venture. Don’t even tell your family. I’ll help you as much as I can, but only on an informal basis. Agreed?”

  Secrecy sat ill with Thorne, but a legitimate reason to spend more time with Margaret suited his plans well.

  “Agreed. I will call upon you by way of the fields rather than come up the lane for all to see, if you prefer.”

  “I’d like it if you brought me the scent of the fields rather than the dust of the road.”

  Still, she remained beside him on the bench.

  “Margaret, shall I take my leave of you here?” To walk away while she sat alone in the dark also sat ill with him.

  “I’m trying to get up my nerve.”

  Thorne’s senses, already attuned to the lady’s tone of voice, scent, posture, and words, sharpened further. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Oh, you heard me. I’m telling myself that a farewell kiss to your cheek needn’t mean much, that a pleasant waltz and a little chat about flowers isn’t a very great thing, but to me, it’s… I would like to kiss you, Mr. Dorning, to thank you. Or something. I think I would. I haven’t kissed anybody for quite some time, but as best I recall, it can be pleasant, interesting, and—”

  Thorne scooted around on the bench so she’d not be taken by surprise. He gave her the space of three silent heartbeats to change her mind, offer disclaimers, or break into song, but she merely sat on the bench, regarding him silently in the moonlight.

  So he kissed her.

  Chapter Five

  “You have foregone Terpsichore’s vernal charms, Mr. Hartley?” Bancroft asked.

  The steward rose from the estate desk, a gratifying hint of the flustered scholar about his demeanor.

  “I wanted to send a report up to London with you on Monday, sir. I thought you could read it in the coach.” He capped the ink and set it on the standish. “There will be other assemblies.”

  Rural assemblies were as predictable as death and as irksome as taxes. Bancroft closed the door and approached the desk. Hartley shuffled aside without being asked.

  “Reading in coaches makes me bilious.” Bancroft sat, leaving Hartley to wander the room.

  “Do you know how long you’ll be gone, sir?”

  “I do not, but I do intend to spend the rest of the evening communing with my accounts. If you leave now, you might catch the last waltz with the local beauties.”

  Hartley’s peregrinations took him to the bookshelves, where monthly reports marched along in a tidy if not always cheering row.

  “Then I would have to work on your report on the Sabbath, Mr. Summerfield, and that I am unwilling to do.”

  “Hartley, you don’t dance, you avoid the assembly, you eschew music, you won’t even scribble a report on the Sabbath. Have I employed a Dissenter?”

  “No, sir. Merely a conscientious second son who values his employment.”

  Bancroft was a second son, which had to figure among the most diabolical purgatories ever devised. “Planting has progressed to your satisfaction?”

  “We have only the Biltmore farm yet to go, sir, and we save that one for last because the land lies low and takes longer to warm up and dry out in spring.”

  “Fascinating. You have your eye on that property, don’t you?” Jeremy Hartley was ambitious, which was a fine quality in moderation. Bancroft had promised him a life estate on one of the tenant farms if Summerfield House could be made profitable in five years. Years one through three hadn’t achieved that goal, and year four wasn’t looking to reverse the trend.

  “I keep my eye on all of your properties, sir. That’s what you pay me for.”

  Of all the employees, servants, and pensioners on the Summerfield estate, Hartley alone enjoyed a generous salary, though he did earn it.

  “I value your hard work,” Bancroft said, opening the household wage book, “but have you any idea which trait I respect in you even more highly than your diligence?”

  “I hope I bring many useful attributes to my work,” Hartley said, drawing himself up. He was in every way an unremarkable man. Medium height, medium-brown hair, medium intelligence.

  “Your loyalty is your greatest asset,” Bancroft said. “To Summerfield House, to the tenancies, to me. I leave my estate in your capable hands, Hartley, confident that when I return all will be running smoothly. Fetch me that abacus, would you?”

  The tenants weren’t warm toward Hartley, but they respected him and did not circumvent his authority by pestering Bancroft directly about repairs, improvements, and other annoyances. Bancroft was called upon to open t
he Hall on Boxing Day and preside over summer and fall picnics. Charles had been a more creditable country squire, but had he been less vigorous in the prosecution of his rural duties, he might have lived longer.

  Charles had also been far too openhanded with the tenants, neighbors, and womenfolk, bequeathing Bancroft a spectacular muddle to sort out. Though to give the devil his due, Charles had been well liked.

  “Summerton is good land,” Hartley said, stretching up to get the abacus down from on top of the bookshelf. “So is much of Summerfield House. Bad luck happens, but over time, good land will always be worth the effort to care for it. We can’t eat coal, my father always said.”

  “A veritable oracle, your father. I won’t worry for the property while I’m gone, but I’m also not larking off to London completely free of care. Would I be imposing too greatly to ask you to take on another small duty while I’m gone?”

  “Of course not, sir.” Hartley set the abacus on the corner of the desk. “Name it.” If Hartley had possessed a tail, it would have been wagging.

  “My dearest relations, that is to say, Mrs. Summerfield and my nieces, are not twelve miles distant, and I have not been as attentive to their situation as I ought to have been.”

  Watchful, yes, but attentive, not exactly. If one of the myriad Dorning bachelors was sniffing about Margaret’s skirts, the time had come to rectify the oversight.

  “Mrs. Summerfield strikes me as a woman of sound judgment,” Hartley said, winding the clock on the mantel. “Her property seems to prosper.”

  “The property, in point of fact, is not hers. Summerton belongs to my nieces.”

  Hartley closed the clock and tucked the key beneath it. “Then the late Mr. Summerfield knew what he was doing. That estate is the best of the land your family owns. It doubtless turns a fine profit and could be earning even more.”

  The same conclusion Bancroft had reached even before Charles’s death. He’d asked his brother to deed him that property, and Charles had laughed, saying the estate was spoken for.