A Lady of True Distinction

by Grace Burrowes

  Laughed, the blighter. “How could it be earning more? And do have a seat.”

  Hartley folded himself into the chair before the desk, crossing an ankle over his knee. Ask him about the land, and he became less the sycophant and more the sage.

  “What you probably notice first about Mrs. Summerfield’s estate is that it’s beautiful,” Hartley said. “The hedges bloom with honeysuckle. The gardens burst with color. She has a stream that never runs dry and a bluebell wood. Her land has just enough roll to it to drain well without eroding.”

  Get to the point. “All apparent to the casual observer.” Not that Bancroft had noted any of these details.

  “That farm could be so much more,” Hartley said. “She could grow wine grapes on those hillsides, soft fruit, orchards, anything besides yet another field of corn. Her wood is overgrown, her hedges should be replaced by walls, and why she let the Dornings dam up the stream is beyond me.”

  Dornings again. The eleventh biblical plague. “When did this happen?”

  “Shortly after I came to work for you. Hawthorne Dorning wanted to create a water meadow and figured out how to engineer it by damming up the stream between the two properties. The stream still flows, but he also has his water meadow.”

  “Water meadows are old-fashioned.” Which was the extent of Bancroft’s knowledge about them.

  “If you can run water over a field all winter, you can bring on the grass much earlier in spring, improve the grass you do get, and create a larger hay crop. We haven’t any water meadows on our land here, and I don’t see a way to create one. A water meadow can also help with flood control or irrigation schemes, not that Mrs. Summerfield has either of those problems.”

  “And Margaret allowed Mr. Dorning to do this?”

  “She didn’t really have a choice, sir. Water is considered a common nuisance, and every landowner has the right—generally—to manage it as best he can. Dorning could have built his water meadow without her permission, but that’s not how the Dornings deal with their neighbors.”

  And thus did the conversation wander to the crux of Bancroft’s agenda. “I don’t know the Dornings well. An earl’s sons and a mere squire don’t move in quite the same circles. We have different market towns, different churches, and Dorning Hall has never been noted for its neighborly entertainments. What do you think of Mr. Hawthorne Dorning?”

  Bancroft’s property was much more impressive than a mere squire’s farm, and the Dornings likely hadn’t a spare groat between them. Bancroft hadn’t spoken honestly, though: Margaret held a life estate in the property she occupied, and the remainder went to the children. For now, the property was more or less Margaret’s and certainly not Bancroft’s.

  “The Dornings as a family are much respected,” Hartley said. “They are good neighbors, hard workers, and responsible with their land.”

  Not what Bancroft had wanted to hear. “And Mr. Hawthorne Dorning?”

  “Not afraid to get his hands dirty. All the Dorning brothers pitch in, sir. They are known for it. Whether it’s stacking hay, laying a hedge, or clearing a ditch, they work side by side with tenants, and Mr. Hawthorne Dorning most of all.”

  “He’s a big brute.” And like his brothers, his eyes were an odd color. More Saxon blue than the rest of the Dorning tribe, but unnaturally vivid.

  “Knows what he’s about too,” Hartley said. “The tenants look up to him, and I’ve been known to discuss the occasional hypothetical with him over a pint.”

  Arguing agriculture. How splendidly English—and boring. “That is all quite interesting, Hartley, but I do not trust Hawthorne Dorning’s motives.”

  Hartley sat up. “In what sense, sir?”

  “When I paid my farewell call on Margaret, Dorning was strutting around her foyer, making himself quite at home. I do fear he has more on his mind than another water meadow. The greatest injustice in all of the legion of injustices incorporated into English law is that I could not offer dear Margaret the sanctuary of holy matrimony.” Not that Bancroft for one moment had been tempted.

  “You’re good to be concerned for a widowed family member, Mr. Summerfield.”

  “I am concerned for her. Today a water meadow, tomorrow who knows what Dorning will charm out from under Margaret’s nose? She hasn’t shown any inclination to marry anybody, but she’s merely a woman. Dorning could spirit away half her lambs, and she likely wouldn’t know it.”

  Hartley was blessed with the gift of deliberation. He considered a problem from all sides, set it aside, then considered it again. The beauty of such a trait was that he did not make quick leaps of insight and could thus be led.

  “She has competent farmers,” Hartley said slowly.

  “Probably true, but Dorning is an earl’s son, and you know how pragmatic the yeomen can be. Dorning is in a position to do them favors. You said it yourself—the Dorning brothers pitch in. If, as one of Mrs. Summerfield’s tenants, you had a choice between championing the cause of a widow who is amply provided for, or winking at a scheme concocted by an earl’s son, which would you do?”

  “I’d have a word with the widow, sir.”

  “An honorable course, but you are not well acquainted with Mrs. Summerfield. She has raised stubborn independence to a high art, and it’s honestly not for her sake that I worry. Charles provided well for his widow, but every lamb of hers that wanders onto Dorning property is in effect stolen from my nieces, and it’s their welfare that concerns me most greatly.”

  How benevolent that sounded, how convincingly avuncular. Bancroft would never slight his nieces’ best interests, but they were a pair of bothersome little females. All they needed was a bit of a dowry and the ability to make congenial conversation, and they wouldn’t need either for more than ten years—which in Greta’s case was fortunate indeed.

  Bancroft would do well enough by them, when the time came.

  “So what, specifically, are you asking me, sir?”

  “Keep an eye on Mrs. Summerfield’s situation in my absence, much as I would were I not making my annual sojourn to the capital.”

  Increasingly, that pilgrimage was less to enjoy the very expensive social whirl and more to search for an heiress of great fortune and modest intellect. One intelligent female in the family was more than enough.

  “Should I call on Mrs. Summerfield?” Hartley asked.

  “You certainly can call on her. Ask her how planting is going, or lambing, or something of that ilk. Be charming.”

  A hint of shrewdness came into Hartley’s brown eyes. “Charming, sir?”

  “She’s a widow, she lives alone with two small children, and her only family will be far away. A bit of harmless flirtation, an offer to look over her acres, a suggestion about a water meadow of her own… nothing untoward, of course.”

  “Of course not, sir. Never that.”

  “I’m glad we understand each other.” Bancroft shuffled the pages on the blotter into a pile and held them out. “You can finish this report in the library, Hartley.” A sepulcher at this time of night, alas.

  “I’ll have it ready for you by the time you leave on Monday.”

  Hartley rose, and Bancroft waited until he was nearly at the door, hustling off to execute yet another task for his employer.

  “One other thing, Hartley?”

  “Sir?”

  “Those Dornings. I realize they are beloved by all and a titled family and all that other, but I also know how the nobs can be. They smile and invite you to the open house, while they run their hounds through your best cornfield. We might be well advised to keep an eye on Hawthorne Dorning, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, sir. I think that exactly.”

  “Good man. I’ll leave you to your report.”

  Hawthorne Dorning kissed like spring stealing across the land. His fingers slid into Margaret’s hair at her nape, an easy touch, but nonetheless intimate. He had warm hands, and he moved as if he had eternities to cradle the back of her head and gaze into her eyes
.

  Blast the timing. Darkness provided privacy, but Margaret wanted to see those magnificent Dorning eyes when Hawthorne made the decision to kiss a babbling widow good night.

  And yet, darkness was appropriate. Scents were magnified by darkness, sounds too. The stable was upwind, bringing both a tangy whiff of horses and the sound of stock contentedly munching hay. The greening aroma of farmland awakening to the growing season underlaid everything, while Hawthorne Dorning’s scent wrapped Margaret in masculine fragrances.

  His mouth touched hers, and she was hard put not to seize him by the hair and prevent him from moving away.

  Ah, but he came back, a more lingering caress of mouth upon mouth. Tension eased in Margaret’s belly—Hawthorne was a very competent kisser—and she allowed herself to return his kisses. She relaxed into the moment and into him.

  Hawthorne Dorning knew how to hold a woman so she felt snug, warm, and cherished, and so she was also abundantly aware of male strength and restraint. Margaret explored under his coat, finding warmth and muscle in abundance.

  With Charles, she’d always been so careful, so mindful of his frailties, for all he’d looked hale and healthy.

  Hawthorne pulled away enough to rest his forehead against Margaret’s. “This could become—”

  “It can’t become anything,” she whispered, hoping to stem whatever gentlemanly reservations he’d been about to state.

  And yet, she wanted more. Even a ruralizing widow of modest means who must do nothing to jeopardize the welfare of her dependents was allowed to want more. Margaret put her longing into her kiss, and by slow degrees, Hawthorne answered her yearning.

  She took a taste of him, he smiled against her mouth, then did likewise. His flavor was sweet and cinnamon-y, like an apple turnover, and erotic, like nothing Margaret had experienced as a wife. The sudden blossoming of desire took her by surprise, as a mild day in late January insisted that spring would come, despite snow, despite barren trees, despite the sun making only a brief appearance.

  The sunshine on those startling days of reprieve was so bright as to hurt the eyes, but ah, the heart was warmed.

  “We have to stop,” Hawthorne whispered. “We stop and you go into the house. Then I walk home, pausing for a long swim in the creek.”

  Delightful man. Margaret resumed kissing him, and while he accommodated her, she could also sense that he’d made up his mind, and when the formidable portcullis of his will had been lowered, not even moonlit kisses could prevail against it.

  Margaret eased her mouth from his and subsided against him. His embrace was pleasure of another order, for he held her close, his cheek resting against her temple.

  “I had forgotten,” she said. “I had forgotten the joy of being awake in springtime.” Because she no longer wandered the woods and hedges looking for plants, no longer spent long, sunny afternoons in her herbal.

  “I forgot my name for a few moments. Do you seek a dalliance, Margaret?”

  He might have been asking if she preferred sugar with her tea, but the question was significant. “Not on purpose, though I have been widowed for several years, and twenty-six is not exactly ancient. Here you are, willing to be kissed. Here I am, not quite sure how to answer the question.”

  “I kissed you first.”

  Lovely man. “So you did, and quite well, I might add.”

  They shared a moment, surprised and pleased on Margaret’s part. Hawthorne was apparently content to hold her rather than rush off to the charms of a frigid stream, but what was he thinking?

  “Shall I call on you?” he asked. “By way of the fields?”

  “You shall.” And I will receive you for so long as Bancroft remains in London.

  And then?

  Some of Margaret’s joy ebbed into sadness. Then, she’d very likely bid Mr. Dorning a fond farewell and revert to being the neighbor he never saw. At a future assembly, his engagement to some blushing young lady would be announced, and Margaret would wish the couple well.

  “Into the house with you,” Mr. Dorning said, rising and drawing Margaret to her feet. “I will scour Dorning Hall for herbals and bring you whatever I find.”

  That provided him a reason to come calling, and she had offered to look over his recipes, hadn’t she?

  He walked with her to the foot of the manor’s front steps, the gravel on the drive crunching loudly beneath their feet. Valerian Dorning’s warning, about Hawthorne not being a widow’s plaything, further dimmed the evening’s glow.

  Where did that leave them? Where did Margaret want that to leave them? “Thank you for a lovely evening, Mr. Dorning.”

  “Hawthorne,” he said, brushing a kiss to her cheek. “Thank you for a lovely evening, Margaret.”

  He was making some statement, not about the evening. Margaret stole a final quick embrace and then skipped up the steps and slipped inside the house. She peeked out the window to see Hawthorne still waiting at the foot of the steps.

  She’d forgotten this, too, that a gentleman waited to ensure the lady was safe. She lit the carrying candle from the sconce, threw the bolt on the front door, and made her way up to bed. When she reached her bedroom, she again peered out the window and saw a tall, masculine form striding across the meadow, making a straight path for the stream that divided Summerton and Dorning Hall.

  Chapter Six

  Grey Birch Dorning, Earl of Casriel, did not particularly enjoy London, even in spring. He very much enjoyed the company of his countess, Beatitude, and she had decreed that their first Season as a couple would be spent putting on a proper show in Town.

  She was entitled to her revenge, after all. Years of making up the numbers, pretending not to hear gossip, ignoring drunken overtures, being friendly but not too friendly, observing propriety but not too much propriety took a toll on a woman.

  Grey’s one condition for their London stay was that he and Beatitude remain at home on the occasional evening. No dinner guests, no card party, no musicale or soiree, just the two of them doing whatever they pleased. Tonight, they pleased to while away their evening in his estate office, both of them catching up on correspondence.

  “Jacaranda says Worth is thinking of putting up a guest house on his brother’s property in Cumbria,” Beatitude said, turning a letter sideways. “She invites us to visit there.”

  “My sister invites us to visit a house her husband hasn’t yet built on land he doesn’t yet own,” Grey said, removing his spectacles. “Marriage has made a formidable woman fanciful.”

  Also happy. Jacaranda and Worth were glowingly happy.

  Willow and Susannah were glowingly happy.

  Sycamore in his gaming hell was happy, though his joy was of a rather more bellicose variety. He delighted in collecting the vowels of the high and mighty and in watching them fret over debts of honor as other mortals did.

  Beatitude rose from the couch and put on Grey’s eyeglasses. “You are worried,” she said, studying him. “Something is bothering you.”

  Having a wife was an adjustment. Grey had learned how to shield himself from the constant scrutiny of his brothers, but Beatitude saw everything Grey attempted to protect her from, and she loved him all the same.

  “Planting has gone well,” Grey said, putting Thorne’s report aside. “No deluges, no late frosts, no oxen going lame just as the land is ready to be turned. Thorne sounds happy.”

  For Thorne.

  Beatitude subsided into his lap. “But?”

  “But I told my brothers last year to plunder the botanical riches of Dorning Hall and set themselves up in business. I’m not charging them for use of the land, conservatory, glass houses, or gardens.”

  She looped her arms around his neck. “You are waiting to take a portion of the profits, as your brothers are waiting.”

  “But what else are they doing besides waiting?” Grey asked, nuzzling his wife’s neck. She smelled good, of gardenias and early bedtimes.

  “The dower house had to be dismantled, Grey. That wa
s quite a project.”

  “True.”

  “Some sort of herbal should be built on Dorning Hall property. That’s another project.”

  Beatitude’s fingers winnowing through his hair were soothing, also muddling. “They’ve started on the building, but only started. I’ve half a mind to jaunt down to Dorset—”

  Beatitude kissed his cheek. “The only place you’re jaunting for the upcoming week is up to bed with me at night and down to breakfast the next morning. We are hosting a ball next Wednesday, lest you forget.”

  That ball would be staggeringly expensive, something Grey had kept to himself. Beatitude was entitled to make one bold statement regarding her remarriage, and the wood and stone salvaged from the dower house had—for the first time in years—put Grey a little ahead financially.

  But only a little. One bad harvest, and he’d be once again scrabbling for every groat.

  “Grey, we have been in Town less than a month. Do you really hate it here so much?”

  “Right now, Town is my favorite place to be. In fact, this very chair in this very room fulfills all my fondest dreams, provided this very countess fills my lap.” He kissed her back on the mouth. How he loved her mouth.

  “You are worried about your brothers.”

  Grey sat back. He loved his brothers, too, and Beatitude wasn’t wrong. “I told them: Here’s carte blanche to make free with the biggest botanical farm in the realm. Help yourself to the lot of it, but generate some revenue and get out of my house. They went as far as the next hill and haven’t done much else.”

  Beatitude shifted so she was straddling Grey’s lap. She’d already changed into a dressing gown, and thus not much came between Grey and his wildest dreams.

  “How are they supporting themselves?”

  “Ash is working for Sycamore here in Town. Valerian impersonates a dancing master or tutor of deportment. Oak sells a few paintings, and Thorne takes a modest salary as my steward. Oak, Valerian, and Thorne have little in the way of monetary needs because they still live at Dorning Hall, more or less.”