In order of age, each brother bowed over her hand. Sycamore had put on muscle during his sojourn in London, and he’d acquired a modicum of manners too. Before leaving Dorning Hall for the greater world, he would have sampled the contents of the decanters without benefit of a glass.
“Mrs. Dorning,” Sycamore said, “a pleasure. If yonder handsome lummox gives you any cause to regret marrying him, you may apply to any of us, and we’ll apply our fists to his person. Works a treat every time.”
“He means that,” Hawthorne said, cuffing Sycamore on the back of the head.
“Shall I ring for tea?” Margaret asked. “And some sandwiches too, I think.”
“I have a special power.” Sycamore finally released Margaret’s hand. “I can make sandwiches disappear. I’ll demonstrate if you order us a tray.”
“But can you shut your mouth for five minutes?” Valerian mused. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
Oak consulted his pocket watch. “Starting now.”
Grey and Sycamore were in riding attire, while Valerian and Oak looked like they’d come in from the fields and done a cursory washing up.
“My brothers have a unique charm,” Hawthorne said, “best enjoyed in small doses.”
“Small, frequent doses,” Valerian said. “Might we be seated? Several days of haying have heightened my appreciation for any cushioned surface.”
“Heightened your need for a bath too,” Sycamore said.
“Seventeen seconds.” Oak snapped his watch closed. “Cam, London has not been a good influence. You used to be able to go twenty consecutive seconds without sounding off. We must assist you to regain the self-restraint you’ve lost.”
Hawthorne had missed Sycamore, the youngest of the brood, and worried for him. He’d also missed Grey and, in a different sense, worried for him, too, but at the present moment, all he wanted was for his brothers to state their business and leave him and Margaret to finish the conversation they’d started upstairs.
“Let’s be seated, shall we?” Hawthorne suggested.
The room held just enough furniture to accommodate six adults. Margaret took one of the reading chairs, Grey the other. Oak, Valerian, and Sycamore occupied the sofa, and Hawthorne took the chair from behind the escritoire and set it next to Margaret’s seat.
“I received your letter,” Casriel said. “At the risk of making a bad impression before the new Mrs. Dorning, I will eschew the pleasantries. How do matters stand with Bancroft Summerfield?”
“You wrote to your brothers?” Margaret asked.
“To inform us of the happy news,” Casriel replied, “so we might welcome you to the family. My countess will follow me down from London with our brother Ash as her escort, and Dorning Hall will host a proper ball in your honor. I gather a few details need tending to first.”
Bancroft Summerfield would have an apoplexy to hear himself referred to as a detail in that bored drawl.
“Bancroft invited Margaret’s nieces for a visit,” Hawthorne said, taking his wife’s hand. “His aims are twofold. First, he seeks to impress a potential bride with his avuncular devotion. Second, he is moving into position to add the girls to his household so he can plunder their fortunes without any interference from me or Margaret. We don’t particularly care about the fortune. We will have the girls back, come what may.”
“You should care about the fortune,” Casriel observed. “When the girls are young ladies, those fortunes could be the difference between choosing a fine young man for a spouse, or facing altogether different options.”
“The fortunes matter,” Valerian said, shooting his cuffs. “Oak?”
“Bancroft has wealth of his own. He cannot be permitted to steal from orphans. Bad form. We take a dim view of bad form.”
Hawthorne kissed Margaret’s knuckles. “Margaret, what have you to say?”
She looked bewildered.
“You state your opinion,” Sycamore said. “You air your perspective in the company of family, and if you’re full of wrong-headed notions, we’ll convince you to see the error of your ways. Or Hawthorne will. He’s obnoxiously reasonable when a fellow wants to burn down the tavern or turn a neighbor’s cattle loose. Has no flair for drama whatsoever.”
“I want the girls home and home to stay,” Margaret said. “The funds are important, but not nearly so important as having the children home, where they are loved and protected.”
“Then we don’t bargain away their inheritance,” Hawthorne said, not that he’d been considering such a course. With his brothers on hand, though, wading through discussion of a problem was part of ensuring that the solution chosen had the support of all involved.
“I could steal the little dears,” Sycamore said. “Climb into the nursery and spirit them away in the dead of night.”
“Captain would chew you to bits before you got halfway through the window,” Hawthorne said, “though we appreciate the sentiment.”
“A show of force?” Valerian suggested. “Pound the miserable sod—I mean, fellow to a pulp? Let him know we look after our own?”
Hawthorne heard in that suggestion a veiled apology for disloyal conduct in the hay field.
“No pounding,” Margaret said. “He could hit back in a lawsuit.”
Oak studied the ceiling, as if entreating the heavens for patience. “More bad form.”
The trays arrived—three of them—and Hawthorne’s brothers did what Dornings did best, demolishing the food as quickly as good manners allowed. The puzzle of how to put Bancroft in his place once and for all apparently worked up prodigious appetites.
Hawthorne passed Margaret a sandwich. “Eat something. They won’t leave enough for a pair of crows to fight over.”
“Are we fighting, Hawthorne?” Her quiet question passed unnoticed by the Vandals ransacking the trays.
“No, nor will we. Not about the situation that led to you marrying Charles. You managed as best you could, and I’m benefitting from your choices.”
“Is it as simple as that?”
Probably not, and complications would arise as the years unfolded. Greta was legally a cousin to Adriana, born to Mrs. Charles Summerfield during her marriage to Adriana’s uncle. In reality, the girls shared no blood relation, and yet, they believed themselves to be sisters. The potential for hurt feelings and burdensome secrets was significant.
And yet… “Did you mean what you said upstairs?” Hawthorne asked.
“About?”
He leaned near enough to whisper. “Your regard for me.”
She nodded. “Did you mean it? When you said the same thing about me?”
“Of course I meant it.” He bussed her cheek, optimism blooming in the face of long odds. “We’ll contrive, Margaret-mine. Come fire, flood, famine, or family, if we care for one another, we shall contrive.”
“No whispering,” Sycamore called. “Grey and Beatitude are forever whispering and smiling, and it’s enough to make one bilious. These are good biscuits. Don’t suppose the kitchen has any more?”
“His name should have been Locust,” Valerian said, snatching the last biscuit from the tray. “As in plague of, not the tree.”
“Honey Locust Dorning,” Sycamore replied, plucking the biscuit from Valerian’s hand. “Just a growing boy.”
Oak smacked him and took the biscuit, breaking it in half and sharing it with Valerian.
“In answer to the question you are too much of a lady to ask,” Hawthorne said, “yes, they are always like this, but we are married now, Margaret. ‘Your brothers are disgraceful’ is not grounds for an annulment. What’s to be done about Bancroft?”
Hawthorne had a few ideas, and he was prepared to announce them, but first he’d allow his brothers to finish spouting their nonsense.
“If I might make a suggestion?” Margaret said.
The bantering and near-brawling stopped. “Please,” Casriel said. “We are all ears.”
Of course they were, now that the food was gone.
�
�We could simply retrieve the girls on Friday,” Margaret said. “March in, smiles at the ready, collect the girls, and thank Bancroft for his hospitality.”
“And six weeks from now,” Valerian said, “what’s to stop him from doing the same thing, particularly when he has acquired a wealthy, charming, pretty sensible wife—whom he does not deserve and whose funds will make Bancroft an even better choice of guardian for the children?”
“Precisely,” Margaret said, “so what we need is a means of striking where Bancroft is vulnerable. He needs funds. The girls, like Miss Pepper, are a means to that end. But doesn’t Bancroft’s lack of funds put him at a disadvantage as well?”
Brilliant woman. She’d anticipated the direction of Hawthorne’s own plans.
“More biscuits, please,” Sycamore said. “Plotting a bounder’s comeuppance is hungry work.”
He winked at Hawthorne, and the last vestige of doubt fell from Hawthorne’s heart. Bancroft’s scheme was doomed, and the girls would soon be home.
“I married a brilliant man,” Margaret said when Hawthorne’s brothers had been sent on their way.
“You married a man with a lot of family,” Hawthorne replied. “I was surprised to see Casriel and Sycamore.”
“They love you.” Margaret looped her arms around Hawthorne’s waist, leaning into the solid wonderfulness of him. “I love you.” She liked saying the words, liked feeling the warmth in her heart that even the thought of Hawthorne brought. Wanting to trust someone, longing to trust them, was not the same at all as having that trust simply given, whole and unasked for, to keep forever.
“I love you too, Mrs. Dorning. Do you realize Casriel didn’t once bring up his damned botanical scheme?”
“He didn’t mention haying either, or shearing, or the plans to demolish a wing of the Hall. I expected him to be, I don’t know, more imposing.”
Hawthorne wandered with her from the front door back through the family parlor, which looked like it had hosted an entire village assembly. Plates, cups, saucers, table napkins, and trays littered the room, and the scent of various soaps lingered, along with the cut-grass fragrance wafting in from the hayfields. The aroma of the Dorning menfolk planning a future for the Summerfield girls.
“I think I know why Emily Pepper is considering Bancroft,” Margaret said, collecting dishes onto a tray.
“Because she’s kind to dumb beasts?”
Margaret had the oddest impulse to smack her husband. “Because her father is dying.”
Hawthorne popped a last uneaten bite of sandwich into his mouth. “Dying? Pepper looked a little travel-weary to me, but dying?”
“He has all the symptoms of dropsy, though a liver ailment might be to blame. He’s under-weight, has no energy, can’t catch his breath, and is puffy about the face and hands. I suspect his ankles and feet are swollen, and he’s not sleeping well.” Then too, his daughter watched him with a particular sadness in her eyes.
Hawthorne drained the last of what had been Casriel’s tea cup. “Can you help him?”
The question was unremarkable. Four words offered while tidying up after company, and yet, Margaret felt their impact like a powerful tonic.
“Help him?”
Hawthorne gestured with the empty tea cup. “Brew up some of that tisane you made for Charles. Foxglove leaves dissolved in hot water. Small doses at first, and so on. You knew as much about the business as Hannah Weller, if not more. Though I daresay if you could find a way to blend the tisane with the chamomile brew Hannah served… Margaret, are you well?”
She had taken the reading chair, groping for the arm as she’d lowered herself to the cushions. “I could help him.”
“You gave Charles years of life he would not have had otherwise. The girls will recall him fondly, and if it hadn’t been for the poor man’s idiot brother—I suspect most brothers are idiots, though Bancroft wins the sweepstakes in that regard—who knows how many more years Charles might have had?”
Hawthorne moved on to another brother’s tea cup, while Margaret felt an odd lightness in her chest.
“I can help him, and I will help him, and then Miss Pepper won’t have to marry that bleating buffoon.”
Hawthorne knelt before the chair, wrapped his arms around Margaret’s waist, and rested his cheek against her thigh. “I doubt she’ll want to have anything to do with Bancroft after Friday.”
Margaret smoothed her hand over Hawthorne’s hair. “Unless her father can be restored to some sort of health, she’ll just settle for the next fortune hunter to come sniffing around.”
“Valerian is sweet on her. He nearly came out of his chair when her name was mentioned. That Oak and Cam didn’t tease him suggests his sentiments have been engaged.”
How lovely this casual cuddling at the end of the afternoon was. How precious. “I haven’t treated anybody for anything since Charles died. I let Bancroft intimidate me out of using my skills and alleviating what suffering I could.”
“Hannah has been on hand for those truly in need.”
“She’s too old to march all over the shire in all weather, Hawthorne. Will you come out to the herbal with me?”
He got to his feet, his hair sticking up on one side. “The herbal with that damnably small cot?”
“We can have a large bed moved out there, but I’d like to consult my notes.”
Hawthorne drew her to her feet and looped his arms over her shoulders. “You were patient with my brothers. Thank you for that.”
For no reason at all, and because she absolutely had to, Margaret kissed him. He kissed her back, and then they slipped out the French doors to the terrace, and from there they walked, hand in hand, to the herbal.
Hawthorne woke up early on Thursday out of habit, but rather than rush off to the hayfields, he lingered over breakfast with his wife.
Actually, he lingered before breakfast with his wife and then again after breakfast. Time spent in the herbal the evening before had also resulted in some lingering with Margaret and in immediate orders to replace the cot with a proper bed.
Margaret had gone wandering over the wilds of Thorne’s body, exploring every intimate hollow and shadow, until he’d forgotten the day, the month, the year, and the challenge looming at Summerfield.
Almost. The business to be conducted there on the morrow was foremost on Hawthorne’s mind as he made his way to the hayfield. If he couldn’t flatten Bancroft literally, he could at least take out his frustrations in hard work.
“You look rested,” Casriel said. His lordship had been working with the team loading the dried hay into wagons. From there the crop would be added to the stack taking shape at the far end of the field. Oak and Valerian were forking—moving the hay from the wagons to the stack—and normally, Hawthorne would have been at the top of the stack. That hot, grueling job one of the most dangerous, because the risk of falls was greatest, but also one of the most critical.
A haystack that hadn’t been properly packed and built was at risk for rot and fire.
Hawthorne finished the pear tart he’d been munching. “I look rested because I am rested. You look like you’ll have a proper set of blisters by sundown. Welcome home.”
“Blisters, sunburn, the occasional bee sting for variety, and a sore back that lingers for days. How one misses the splendors of the countryside.”
Casriel was the most scientific pugilist of Thorne’s brothers. Landing a solid blow on him was difficult, and what few punches he threw could do significant damage. Hawthorne had the sense the earl was spoiling for a fight.
Bless his misguided heart. “Margaret will disapprove if I lay you out before half the village for your whining, but she will also patch up the combatants. She has this marvelous comfrey salve that makes you want to breathe through your nose and write poetry. Takes away at least half the ills of haying under the hot sun.”
Casriel rested his rake across his shoulders, all languid grace and lordly composure, despite the battered hat and lack of a coat.
“Walk with me,” Hawthorne said, for he did not want to pummel his brother to smithereens in public, but apparently, pummel him, he must. Some of the jobs Hawthorne took on were both a duty and a pleasure.
Casriel stalked at his side and left the rake by the water bucket. “Even at this hour, the shade feels good. Perhaps it will cool my temper.”
Hawthorne kept walking down the hedgerow, acorns crunching beneath his boots. “And what, precisely, has you in a temper?”
“Not a what, a who. My brother—the sibling usually referred to as the sensible one—was tasked with stewarding the family acres, and he’s off socializing with his wife. He’s supposed to be putting a botanical business together, and yet, here we are, months later, without a single sachet to sell. He’s to be a good influence on Valerian and Oak. The one has fallen top over tail for a woman he can’t have. The other is threatening to take up work in some Hampshire garret.
“I leave my brothers to sort themselves out,” Casriel went on, “and I come home to… sheer chaos.”
And Casriel did so abhor chaos. Hawthorne was equally torn between the impulse to hug his brother and to cuff him on the back of the head, so he did both.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Casriel said, pulling away and dusting at his clothing.
“Am I the Dorning Hall steward, my lord? I don’t believe anybody ever hired me for that post. My wages were never discussed, nor were the terms of my employment. You haven’t been in the field for two hours, and you’re whining, while I have been managing the haying since Papa died. There,”—he gestured at the youth driving the hay wagon—“that’s Martin Weller’s oldest. I was his age when I took on this job, and I have never shirked, and I am not shirking now.”
A Lady of True Distinction Page 31