A Lady of True Distinction

by Grace Burrowes

  “I have three brothers in London. I’ll send an express, and we should have the license within a fortnight at most.”

  Margaret hugged him, the enormity of her relief creating a curious temptation to cry. “Thank you, Hawthorne. I have always admired your gift for industry. You accomplish a task while others stand about planning and procrastinating. That is a lovely quality in a man.”

  “When you have eight siblings, the planning and procrastinating can go on forever and tend to sound like bickering. Is there more you’d say about this, Margaret? If Bancroft has betrayed the trust Charles placed in him, I’d like to know that now.”

  I betrayed Charles’s trust. The delicacy of Thorne’s question sank in before Margaret could let old guilt swamp her.

  “Bancroft has never made untoward overtures, if that’s what you mean. He knows the law prevents him from marrying me, and he’s not a man to exert himself for no purpose.”

  Some of the tension Thorne had been holding eased from his body. “You put my mind at rest. I don’t favor dueling, but I’m entirely comfortable with a round of fisticuffs when the occasion warrants. I’ll send a letter to London this afternoon, and Valerian should be at Doctors’ Commons before sunset tomorrow.”

  He spoke with such assurance, such certainty that his plans would be carried out. “With Charles, everything we did was bounded by the limitations of his health. Any plans we made—for a picnic, for a drive, a call on neighbors, even a review of the household books while we sat before a cozy fire—were qualified by the postscript: depending on Charles’s health. Depending on how he felt. Depending on if he was up to the exertion at that moment. If a nap restored some of his energy, I’d drop what I was doing to indulge his desire to walk in the garden. We lived for those good days.”

  “You have been through much,” Thorne said, his hand moving slowly on her back. “I had thought you retiring, not particularly sociable. It never occurred to me that poor health might curb Summerfield’s socializing. He was always affable, always cheerful when I saw him.”

  Charles’s pride had been the other limitation on the marriage. Margaret had come to see that only recently, as Bancroft’s pride—what sensible landowner eschewed turnips, for pity’s sake?—had become more apparent as well.

  “I look forward to becoming your wife,” Margaret said, “but you must be patient with me. You are not Charles, but I am still me.”

  “We will be patient with each other,” Thorne said. “And we will weather the storms together, for there will be storms.”

  Had he ordered the heavens for his own purposes, his comment could not have been better timed. Thunder rumbled gently from the south.

  “Away with you,” Margaret said. “Write to your brothers. I will read your father’s notes and think on what scents you could produce in quantity that will be unique to the Dorning brothers’ enterprise.”

  Thorne kissed her cheek—a prudent choice when they must part—and bowed. “May I call on you Friday?”

  Margaret trailed a hand over his chest, stopping north of his waistband. “You may call on me any day.”

  “If the weather’s fair on Friday afternoon, dress for an outing on foot. I’d like to show you some of my favorite corners of the estate.”

  Oh my. Said with that smile, in that particular tone, Margaret could be certain that the parts of the estate to be appreciated would be beautiful and absolutely, entirely private.

  “I’d like to show you a few parts of my estate as well, Hawthorne.”

  He kissed her on the mouth this time, a smiling kiss. The thunder rumbled again, and then he was out the door and striding off across the terrace amid a rising wind.

  “You are sitting at Grey’s desk.” Oak sauntered into the Dorning Hall estate office, his cuffs turned back, smears of paint on his knuckles and forearms. “You look good there.”

  “I’m writing to Valerian, Sycamore, Ash, Willow and Casriel, but you can be the first to congratulate me. Mrs. Summerfield has done me the honor of consenting to be my wife.”

  Those stilted, formal words could not convey the blend of relief, glee, and anxiety the reality provoked in Thorne.

  Oak came around the desk, grabbed Thorne’s head in a wrestling hold, and scrubbed his knuckles hard across his crown. “Congratulations, best wishes, and I will kiss the bride, assuming the lady doesn’t object.” He kissed Thorne’s brow and let him go. “Well done, Hawthorne. Have you set a date?”

  Thorne ran his hands through his hair. “I’m writing to Valerian to procure us a special license. Margaret doesn’t want any fuss.”

  “Does she want you?” Oak settled into the chair across from the desk, one every Dorning brother had occupied on those occasions when Papa had felt a lecture was necessary. Papa had not been much of a disciplinarian, but his disappointment could fell a naughty boy’s pride in two minutes flat.

  “Why would you imply she doesn’t want me?” Thorne replied, sprinkling sand over the letter. “She accepted my proposal, and Margaret is a woman who knows her own mind.”

  “Mar-gar-et.” Oak grinned. “You want her, clearly, but then, you always were a bit taken with her.”

  “How the hell would you know that?”

  Oak rose and went to the window, where rain turned the view of fields and pastures into a fractured, dripping facsimile of a rural landscape.

  “You are my brother.”

  “I have that honor.”

  “As do a herd of other worthies,” Oak said. “You followed Papa around. I followed you. Papa loved the plants. Every little weed and wildflower fascinated him more than the little weeds and wildflowers he’d produced for the nursery upstairs. You loved the land itself, the abundant sustenance it provides. You and he at least had common ground, as it were, to discuss. I learned to love the whole of it, the entire pastoral pageant, though I will never capture the wonder of nature adequately on canvas.”

  I followed you. And Thorne had followed Margaret on many occasions. “One forgets that younger brothers can be devious.”

  Oak wandered from the window to the sideboard. “One never forgets that older siblings can be oblivious, as can parents. Sycamore refused to be ignored. I learned to enjoy my relative privacy.”

  While Valerian used a bit of both strategies. “Will you enjoy removing to Hampshire?”

  Not so far away, and yet, Thorne understood why Valerian had balked at the notion. After years of rattling around Dorning Hall in a noisy, quarrelsome throng, most of the Dorning brothers seemed to be in a rush to leave home.

  “No, actually. The lady I’m corresponding with sounds set in her ways, exacting, and dour, but she’s in a position to provide me work that I enjoy.”

  “I will miss you.” The realization tossed a damper on Thorne’s pleasure at having become engaged. “You can talk sense to Valerian and Sycamore. Hell, you can talk sense to me on occasion. Why did you ask if Margaret wants me for a husband?”

  Oak rummaged in the sideboard and produced a dusty bottle. “She is a comfortably well-off widow. She needn’t marry anybody, but she’s agreed to become your wife. Of course she wants you.” He poured two servings and passed one to Thorne. “To marital bliss.”

  Thorne drank to that, the brandy spreading a comforting warmth on an afternoon grown dreary.

  “There’s wanting and there’s wedding,” Thorne said. “You asked your question for a reason, Oak.”

  Oak resumed his place at the window, drink in hand. How often had the late earl stood in the same place, gaze upon his lands, while a son or two or six tried and failed to earn their father’s notice?

  I will be a good father to Margaret’s girls, for that’s what they need. Not a step-uncle to carve the roast at the head of the table or to be an occasional visitor to the nursery or a dispenser of lemon drops. Those activities mattered, but they did not make a man worthy of the privilege of raising children.

  Oak peered at his drink. “I always thought Margaret Mallory would end up with Lucas Welle
r.”

  “Hannah’s grandson?”

  “Great-nephew, grandson, I’m not sure which. He often foraged for plants with Hannah and Margaret and sometimes with Margaret alone.”

  “You mean, alone along the lanes, or alone where no one but my nosy brother could spy on them?” Why did this ancient history matter? Lucas hadn’t lived to see his majority, and Margaret had accepted Thorne’s proposal.

  “We live in rural Dorset, Thorne. Even the lanes are hardly thronged with traffic. Is that letter ready? I’ll take it into the village and post it for you.”

  Oak had apparently said all he intended to say on the subject of Lucas Weller and Margaret Mallory Summerfield, but he’d said enough. Just as Thorne had dallied with Mrs. Plumley, Margaret might well have been infatuated with young Lucas. If Lucas had had any sense, he’d been infatuated with Margaret too.

  “I can take the letter to the inn,” Thorne said, pouring the sand back into the jar. “You don’t really want to go out in this downpour.”

  “I like rambling in a good storm,” Oak replied, finishing his drink. “The streams fill up, the sky commands attention, the wildlife leaves the stage for a time.” He set his empty glass on the sideboard. “Will you live at Summerton?”

  That question tossed another layer of practicality over the rosy glow of Thorne’s new status as husband-in-waiting.

  “I thought we’d set up housekeeping in the steward’s cottage. The place is certainly large enough, and Margaret can lease out Summerton to earn additional rent.” The idea of going to live at Summerton wasn’t exactly repugnant—the house and grounds were lovely—but Dorning Hall was Thorne’s home.

  That Thorne had lived in the steward’s cottage for only a few months meant Margaret would have a free hand in making the place into the dwelling best suited to her and the girls.

  “I’m sure you’ll sort it all out,” Oak said, taking Thorne’s glass and finishing his brandy. “You’ll have the rest of your lives to get situated, after all. What’s that?”

  “A handkerchief.” Thorne folded the letter around the square of linen Margaret had given him to replace the handkerchief Greta had used. He parted with Margaret’s token reluctantly, but needs must when Casriel grew impatient.

  “You are paying hard-earned coin to send a handkerchief to London by express?”

  “I’m sending ammunition.” Thorne finished folding the letter, sealed it with his signet ring, then tied a length of twine around it, not that twine would deter Oak if Oak was inclined to pry. “My thanks for posting it.”

  Oak took the letter and paused by the door. “Give some thought to the ceremony. Margaret married Charles by special license, too, you know. No villagers cheering the happy couple around the green, no bells rung for all to hear, no wedding breakfast in the assembly room. All very quiet, and then not long after, Charles whisked her off on a wedding journey that lasted months.”

  “We’ll not be going anywhere until after harvest,” Thorne said. “Margaret grasps that my duties require me to be at Dorning Hall, especially if Grey insists on cavorting about in London.”

  “Grey is married,” Oak said. “I do believe Beatitude does the insisting.”

  “And Margaret insists on discretion regarding our nuptials, if you please. No whispering my good news to whoever’s napping in the snug, Oak. We’ll make an announcement once we’re wed.”

  Oak drew his finger along the edge of the letter. “This has to do with Bancroft, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Oak looked like he’d say more, but then he saluted with the letter. “I’m off to enjoy the elements.”

  “I’ll go with you to the foot of the lane.”

  “Even a doting swain doesn’t pay two calls on his intended on the same day, Thorne.”

  “How fortunate I am to have a brother well versed in doting swain-hood, though this same brother has never so much as serenaded a lady by moonlight.”

  Oak preceded him from the room and down the steps. “I’ve serenaded a few ladies. One doesn’t have to finish university to make a fool of oneself.”

  Oak had tried a year at Oxford and promptly declared the exercise pointless. He’d been there without brothers, Sycamore being resistant to the notion, though Thorne suspected the real issue was family finances.

  “I am not making a fool of myself with Margaret. She has reasons for remarrying, and I have made it plain to her that her expertise with scents will be a valuable asset to our new mercantile venture.”

  Oak went right at the bottom of the steps, in the direction of the back hallway. “Was that before or after you offered her a sonnet to her fine blue eyes? Did you tuck that declaration into the list of attributes you adore about her? Lovely smile, kind heart, excellent mustard plasters? Maybe you conveyed your tender commercial sentiment between verses of French poetry?”

  “She knows I care for her.”

  Oak took down Thorne’s cape from the peg on the wall and tossed it at him. “Oh, well, that makes all the difference. I care for my horse, Thorne. Even if the lady said yes to your proposal, you had for damned sure better figure out how to court her, or your marriage will be a field that lies fallow, year after year.” He shrugged into his own cape, the hems swirling about his boot tops.

  “You are in a temper,” Thorne said, jamming an old felt hat onto his head. “You never get into a temper.”

  “I am always in a temper, but unlike you, I don’t sweat off my ire wrestling livestock and hedges. I mostly trust you to be a decent husband to Margaret, Thorne, but have you thought that if you marry her, you are all but indenturing yourself to Dorning Hall? Grey snaps his fingers and expects us to turn his weeds and hedges into a profitable undertaking, when he was barely able to keep Dorning Hall afloat with all of us lending our aid.”

  “We also expected Grey to absorb our expenses, which are considerable.”

  Oak opened the back door, revealing a world gone damp, shadowed, and lush with spring rain. “I love Grey, as we all do, but he’s the earl. Rescuing Dorning Hall is his responsibility, not yours, not ours. The exchange has been fair thus far in your case because you’ve worked your arse off to keep the estate producing. Grey has been free to take a wife, to leave the property at a whim. You don’t owe him the rest of your life, much less your choice of wife.”

  “It’s not like that, Oak. Margaret and I are well suited.”

  “Because you want her perfumes, and she wants you to keep Bancroft from wrecking Summerton the way he’s wrecking Summerfield. I suppose good marriages have sprung from less.” He marched out the door, Thorne following him. “Don’t you trust me to deliver a letter to the posting inn?”

  “I trust you, but I’ve been meaning to pay a call on Hannah Weller. Today is as good a day as any.”

  The crushed shells of the walkway crunched beneath Thorne’s boots, a reminder to ask Margaret about the marling schedule at Summerton—between damned verses of French poetry.

  “Will you stand up with me?” Thorne asked when they reached the front drive.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “When we speak our vows, will you stand up with me?” Because having at least one brother on hand for the ceremony seemed like a good idea.

  “Thorne, I will be honored to witness your nuptials, even if I know you are a damned fool to rush into this without paying the lady court in the manner all women are due, much less without thinking through your own motivations.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Oak shoved him hard enough that Thorne very nearly fell on his arse amid a patch of bedraggled pink tulips. “Of course it’s a yes, but you really should court your lady. Begin as you intend to go on, and all that.”

  Thorne thought back to kisses shared in a small, fragrant office, to the feeling of Margaret resting against him, her head on his shoulder.

  “I can muster a little romance.” Though—this bothered him—he also truly did need for Margaret to part with a perfume recipe or two.
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  Chapter Fourteen

  “I do believe London traffic is a foretaste of eternal damnation,” Bancroft said. “Pardon my language.”

  “Our first and second coachmen are Scottish,” Miss Pepper replied, twirling her parasol slowly. “It takes more than a mention of eternal damnation to mortify me, Mr. Summerfield.”

  Bancroft maneuvered his rented gig past a fish wagon, of all the affronts to fresh air, only to be halted by a manure wagon stopped in broad daylight in the middle of the street.

  “I say there!” he called to the wagon master. “Let’s get on, shall we?”

  An enormous fellow in enormously dirty clothes lumbered over from the stopped vehicle. “T’ off-hind wheeler’s come up colicky. He canna pull nay mair t’day. Relief teams on t’way.”

  “Oh, the poor darling,” Miss Pepper cooed. “A bit of the somnifera might set him to rights. Shall I have a look?”

  “My dear,” Bancroft muttered, “not the done thing.”

  “But an animal is in pain, and I do so love animals.”

  “A fine attribute, but I’m sure this fellow knows his cattle. Good sir, if you could assist me to back this team up enough to continue on to Hyde Park, I’d be obliged.” The team was rented, too, a pair of glossy chestnuts with matching white stockings up front. The hostler had referred to them as his courting pair, no less, and, in honor of Bancroft’s objectives, had let them out for a veritable song.

  “Aye,” the drayman said. “Have ye on yer way in a trice.” He tugged his shaggy forelock at Miss Pepper and shuffled to the head of the team. Some foreign incantation ensued, which had the effect of coaxing the chestnuts to back up a few yards—no small feat when the street was becoming snarled with traffic—and maneuvering into a reversal of direction.

  “Well done,” Miss Pepper said. “I find London overwhelming, for all that the people seem friendly. Do you miss Dorset?”

  No, Bancroft did not. Not in the least. He loved the bustle and hum of Town, loved that he could stroll two streets over and find a long evening of whist in the company of sophisticated gentlemen. He did not miss the scent of cow shite spread over the fields, or the bawling of new calves, or the company of his neighbors, who could discuss only marling, lambing, and other bucolic drudgery.