A Lady of True Distinction

by Grace Burrowes

  Casriel adjusted the angle of his hat. He was a little less buttoned-up since marrying, a little less an icon of conservative fashion.

  “You’ll need an introduction to Miss Emily Pepper. I’ll consult with my countess and see that you become acquainted with the lady in the next twenty-four hours.” He strode off, not the fashionable earl sauntering about Town, but once again a Dorning brother intent on a mission.

  Valerian went the opposite way, already dreading the introduction to Miss Pepper. He knew two things about the lady sight unseen. First, if Bancroft was sniffing about her settlements, they were substantial settlements indeed. Second, if she seriously entertained Bancroft Summerfield as a suitor, she was not too bright and likely not too discerning either.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You will please keep the children indoors, Fenny.” Margaret paced the length of the family parlor, which in the course of a pretty Friday morning had shrunk to the emotional space of a broom closet.

  “They will not leave the house, I promise, ma’am. The girls are working on an illustrated book of adventures, and I doubt I could entice them into the garden if I wanted to.”

  Margaret had heard about those adventures on her visit to the nursery. An intrepid wise woman had fallen into an old mine shaft while foraging for parsnips, an accident that could all too easily have been taken from real life.

  “What of sums?” Margaret said, her gaze straying for the hundredth time to the back garden below the window. “They haven’t done any sums this week.”

  “Why should they?” Fenny set aside her embroidery hoop. “Both of them wrangle sums as if they had abacuses in their little heads. I suppose they get that from you.”

  The usual response—But the children are not related to me—seemed pointless. “Then they should work on subtractions, or perhaps it’s time to introduce multiplication. Greta already seems to grasp the concept.”

  While Margaret could not hold a thought in her head. Spring fever afflicted her, or Hawthorne fever, more likely. The day was glorious, also Friday, when he’d asked her to dress for a walking excursion. This feeling halfway between glee and worry was new to her. Neither Charles nor Lucas had inspired anything of the kind, though she’d liked, been attracted to, and grown attached to both men.

  “Mr. Dorning will be here soon,” Fenny said. “Perhaps you should wait for him by the fountain.”

  “One doesn’t want to appear too eager.”

  “You and Mr. Dorning are to be married. You are allowed to be eager. After all your years tending to Saint Charles, and more years tending to his nieces, the notion that somebody has come along to tend to you for a change rather pleases me.”

  “Thank you, Fenny. It’s just that—”

  There he was, emerging from the woods. Hawthorne wore riding attire—wore it very well—and was bareheaded.

  “He is easy on the eyes, isn’t he?” Fenny said, joining Margaret at the window. “Away with you, and enjoy your walk. I’ll see how the intrepid wise woman has fared at the bottom of her mine shaft.”

  Margaret took one more moment to admire the sight of Hawthorne Dorning crossing the garden at an easy prowl, then whirled for the door. “Start on multiplication, Fenny. The girls are ready for it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  And Margaret was ready to be free of the house, free from Fenny’s knowing smile, free from everything. Hawthorne stopped by the fountain, his expression suggesting he’d caught sight of her as soon as she’d stepped out of the house. Margaret kept walking, down the terrace steps, along the paved path, straight into Hawthorne’s open arms.

  “Mr. Dorning, good day.” Oh Lord, he smelled good. Of woods, leather, peppermint toothpowder, shaving soap, and springtime.

  His embrace closed around her, secure and precious. “Mrs. Summerfield. I hope you’re well.”

  The words were prosaic compared to the affection so freely given and so generously reciprocated. I will love being married to this man.

  “I am in the pink,” Margaret said, stepping back. “And in great good spirits too. Are we to take a walking tour of your property?”

  “That would require far longer than the few hours I can spare today,” Hawthorne said, drawing Margaret’s arm through his. “But eventually, yes, I’d like to ride every acre of Dorning Hall with you and call on every tenant. I’d like to see every hedge and field of Summerton when you have the time to show them to me. Let’s start by admiring your bluebells.”

  Margaret had been in the woods the previous day with the girls, but hadn’t strayed as far as the bluebells. By scent alone, she could tell that they’d reached their full glory and would soon start to fade.

  “To the bluebells, and you will please invite your brother Oak to sketch them in the next few days. This has been a good year for spring wildflowers.” None of which Margaret had harvested, though she knew Hannah had been foraging all over the neighborhood.

  “How are Greta and Adriana?” Hawthorne asked as they wandered from the garden.

  “They are soon to embark on the wonders of multiplication. My babies are growing up. Some days that’s a relief, others…”

  “You wonder where the years go. I recall marching around our kitchen garden with little Tabitha on my shoulders. Now my niece is off to some fancy finishing school, speaking French like a native, whipping off entire piano sonatas by heart, and dreaming of candlelit ballrooms. How did that happen?”

  The bluebells came into view, and surely they had never looked finer. Dappled sunlight winked down through trees gauzy with new leaves. The delicate scent perfumed the air—the fragrance of spring itself, according to the children—and pale violet flowers carpeted the grassy clearing.

  “Hawthorne, is that a picnic basket?” Margaret tried not to step on any flowers, but they were too thick underfoot to avoid. “That is a picnic basket, and blankets, and wine… Oh, what am I to do with you?”

  He’d arranged the scene like something out of a travelogue from a beautiful, exotic land. He’d spread not one blanket but three thicknesses, an oil cloth, a wool cooler, and then a quilt. A wicker basket sat at one corner of the blankets, a pillow at another. Just beside the blankets stood a small porcelain crock stuffed with tulips, bluebells, and a spray of French lilacs.

  And this was for her. In the middle of the myriad tasks that went with managing a vast estate, Hawthorne had done this for her. Margaret sat on the nearest boulder and promptly began to cry.

  For no reason, no reason at all.

  Hawthorne came down beside her and passed her a handkerchief. “Margaret?”

  She waved the handkerchief. “I’m being ridiculous. This is a picnic. In my bluebell wood, with the flowers… ” Her own tears made no sense to her, but when Hawthorne wrapped his arm around her shoulders, that made all the sense in the world.

  “Oak scolded me,” he said. “Said I ought to court you, not simply snatch your recipes, mumble my vows, and go back to sharpening all the scythes in preparation for haying.”

  “Oak should mind his own business.”

  “He usually does, which is why I paid attention to his lecture. He’s right, but you must not tell him I said so.”

  “Word of honor,” Margaret said, dabbing at her eyes. “I’ll never tell. You need not court me, but I’m glad you are. I’ve never had a picnic before, unless children were cavorting about, making a racket, and growing overly tired.”

  “I’ve never had a picnic either,” Hawthorne said, “unless two brothers were arguing over the last bottle of wine, another was trying to steal my food, and a fourth was lounging over my half of the blanket. Will you picnic with me, Margaret?”

  His eyes were so blue and his gaze so serious. Margaret had to kiss him. By virtue of great self-restraint, she kissed his cheek.

  “We will share the bluebell wood with each other, and the blankets, and the wine.” Margaret stayed right beside Hawthorne, reveling in a perfect moment. The day, the bluebells, the man… All was for once exa
ctly as she pleased, and—most perfect of all—she sensed the moment was exactly as Hawthorne pleased too.

  Once upon a time, Thorne had been galloping homeward on Gowain, trying to outrun an autumn storm on the way back to Dorning Hall. Gowain had, as usual, attempted to leap the brook at one go and, as usual, made a huge splashing landing in the water instead.

  And then the horse had lost his footing and gone down, knees to nose, tossing Thorne into a cold, rushing torrent. The whole ordeal was made harder for Thorne to comprehend by three-quarter ton of equine thrashing about just downstream. The shock of the horse going out from under him, the abrupt dousing, and the mental disorientation had stayed with him long after he’d shed his wet clothing and stepped into a hot bath.

  Margaret’s tears were a similarly unexpected development, as shocking to Thorne’s heart as the cold water had been to his body, and somehow as painful too. Thorne hated to see her upset—hated it. Would have snatched up the blankets and cast the basket into the bracken to stop her crying. Margaret Summerfield was a sensible woman, independent in nature, and not given to sentiment.

  Which was why her sniffling tore at him, and the feel of her curled against him, leaning on him, stirred all manner of tender feelings. He and Margaret were to be married, truly, intimately, forever married. The reality was more complicated than Thorne had anticipated and more daunting.

  A woman who cried at the sight of picnic blankets could be hurt. Probably had been hurt.

  “Shall we fortify ourselves before we go rambling?” Thorne asked. “The fare is humble—chicken sandwiches, cheese, and apple tarts. I stole some of Oak’s French chocolates, but one never decimates his brother’s private stores, so my larceny was limited to a few pieces.”

  Margaret regarded him through teary lashes. “You steal from your brothers?”

  “The property laws among my siblings are complicated and silly. From earliest boyhood, we’ve each hoarded items of special interest to us. Oak loves his chocolates. Sycamore had a penchant for a certain type of sketch.”

  Margaret bumped her shoulder against his. “Naughty sketches?”

  “Let’s leave the fellow some pride. They were simply sketches that appealed to him. Valerian treasured items of fashion—a pair of gold sleeve buttons, an embroidered handkerchief. He even had a few of Mama’s earrings that had lost their mates. Willow scribbled adventure stories featuring intrepid hounds.”

  “What did you have?”

  “Nosy brothers. Each boy attempted to hide his treasures from the others, to no avail. We were an industrious lot when it came to violating one another’s privacy, but our intent was not to destroy precious belongings.”

  “Your intent was to destroy one another’s peace of mind. What odd creatures brothers must be.”

  Odd and dear. “We had unwritten rules. If I found Oak’s chocolates, I would take one or two, as a warning that his hiding place had been discovered. To gobble them all would have been unsporting. If Valerian came cross Willow’s stories, he’d casually quote from one of them at mealtime. Willow would know to move his hiding place. Sycamore would find that an occasional moustache or eye patch had been added to the ladies featured in his sketches.”

  “But only to one or two. I see.”

  She didn’t see—one had to have brothers to truly grasp this degree of nonsense—but neither did Margaret offer any judgment.

  “I had an imaginary sister,” she said. “Her name was Pamela, like the virtuous heroine of the famous novel. She was very kind and always certain of her moral direction. When I grew older, I told myself she had gone to finishing school, and I’d write letters to her, but once I turned sixteen, I stopped allowing myself even that fantasy. I daresay she would have disapproved of me by then.”

  Such wistfulness, and such a fanciful way to combat what must have been a lonely girlhood.

  “Shall we eat?” Thorne asked, rising and offering Margaret his hand.

  She stood and wrapped her arms around him. “I am glad we are engaged to be married, Hawthorne. I suspected we would suit. I’m sure of it now. You are a good listener and a romantic. I feel as if I’ve found the Dorning family’s last, best treasure trove, and I intend to gobble him all for myself.”

  Thorne was already accustomed to the feel of Margaret in his arms, already sensed a familiar comfort in her embrace. He had no light, witty retort, though, just as he’d had no hidden store of boyish delights.

  “I’m sorry your only friend was imaginary.” Sorry she’d had no siblings to torment and protect, to fight with and fight for.

  “I had books, I had the beautiful countryside, Hannah took an interest in me. One manages. Shall we investigate that picnic blanket?” She led Thorne by the hand across the glade, apparently happy to get on with the meal.

  He was hungry—he was often hungry—but also unsettled. An exchange of boyhood family lore, a harmless confidence about Margaret’s girlhood, a little affection… Nothing about the encounter should have left Thorne feeling off-balance, and yet, he was off-balance.

  Perhaps what he was experiencing was the same sense of stepping into a different world that befell every traveler who found himself in an enchanted land. He was to be married to a dear, desirable woman of hidden depths and increasing preciousness. Perhaps he’d found a treasure trove meant only for him at long last.

  Margaret’s interest in Hawthorne Dorning had progressed from a girlish infatuation with a youth of higher station to a widow’s silent observation that someday some lucky lady would be his wife.

  She was the last woman he ought to marry, and yet, that lucky, lucky circumstance was apparently to be hers.

  “Would you say you were lonely growing up?” she asked, kneeling beside the hamper.

  “I had a horde of siblings and both parents with me at all times,” Thorne replied, sitting cross-legged on the blankets. “My grandmother dwelled in the dower house, and various uncles, aunts, and cousins were forever visiting. I should not have been lonely.”

  She found the apple tarts first, wrapped in paper and tied with twine. She passed them to Hawthorne, who produced a folding knife to cut the twine.

  “You were usually alone when I spotted you out walking,” she said. “Don’t eat those yet.”

  “Why not?” He took a bite and held the tart out to her. “They’re delicious.”

  Every difference between women and men, every difference between Margaret and her intended, was encapsulated in that simple gesture. Hawthorne ate when he was hungry. He shared from his abundance. He trusted his bodily urges and didn’t apologize for sampling sweets before sandwiches. He was forthright, where Margaret doubted herself, and he enjoyed his pleasures free of memories or misgivings.

  Margaret took a bite of cinnamon, buttery pastry, apples, and sweetness. “Forbidden fruit,” she said, sitting back. “You’re right. It’s good.”

  “Have some more.”

  “We shouldn’t.”

  Hawthorne scooted closer. “How can somebody who was raised without a single nosy younger sibling have such a well-developed fear of being tattled on? We are private, Margaret May. In your own woods, not another soul to be seen. Enjoy yourself.”

  He held up the tart again, though Margaret was focused on the scent of him. He was near, he was to be hers, and they were private, as he’d said.

  Very private. “If I’m truly to enjoy myself, then we should put the tart away.”

  He set the tart on the paper and leaned back on his hands. “Am I to enjoy myself too?”

  The slanting sun turned his hair auburn and caught the shine of a cheek recently shaven. He was of a piece with the natural surroundings, and yet, he was also sophisticated enough to know when a woman needed—craved, longed for—wooing.

  Margaret wanted to woo him too. Wanted to know him, to claim him, to be joined to him with a yearning that was physical and personal, but also anxious. Men disappeared. They had a bad habit of dying when Margaret needed them most. Other men—Bancroft—meddl
ed, and only a woman with a strong male ally would be equal to the inevitable battle in which Bancroft would soon embroil her.

  For that, she needed Hawthorne more than he knew. “You did say we could anticipate our vows, sir. I’d like to anticipate them now.”

  He slipped a sleeve button from his cuff. “I’ve been mentally anticipating our vows for the past three days,”—a second sleeve button disappeared into his pocket—“and nights.” His cravat pin went next, followed by his pocket watch and chain.

  How tidy and methodical. Why should these mundane steps toward disrobing turn Margaret’s insides into a muddle?

  “I can help you with your boots, if you like,” he said, “unless you intend to ravish me with your boots on?”

  “You’re willing to be ravished, then?”

  “Enthusiastically so. You?”

  Margaret wanted to laugh, to pelt through the forest with Hawthorne in pursuit. “Likewise.”

  He tugged off one big riding boot, then the other, and set them side by side in the grass. “Valerian applied for our special license two days ago. I got his express this morning. The license should be ready by Wednesday or so and in our hands not later than Thursday. If we’re to anticipate our vows, we’re not anticipating them by much.”

  “We’re to anticipate our vows, Hawthorne.” The news about the special license was pathetically reassuring. Margaret had already forgiven herself for succumbing to Lucas Weller’s charms—she hadn’t known any better, hadn’t even known that coitus outside of wedlock could result in conception, or what exactly coitus entailed. After hearing about Hawthorne’s upbringing, rich in siblings and extended family, she forgave herself all over again.

  Lucas had shown a very lonely, awkward girl some attention. He’d liked her. He’d told her she was pretty. If he’d asked her for the moon, she would have been pleased to snatch it from the sky for him. When he’d died, he’d asked more than the moon of her in ways she hadn’t realized until several weeks later.