Not Quite a Lady, Page 2

  “You know very well I will not—cannot—refuse when you put it that way,” Darius said. “When does my year start?”

  “Now,” said Lord Hargate.

  Cheshire

  Saturday 15 June 1822

  The pig’s name was Hyacinth.

  She lay in her pen, patiently nursing her numerous offspring. The fattest and most fertile sow in the county, she was the pride of her owner, the Marquess of Lithby, and the envy of his neighbors.

  Lord Lithby leaned on the sty fence, admiring his favorite swine.

  The young woman standing beside him was thinking that she and the sow had a good deal in common, both being prize specimens upon whom his lordship doted.

  Lady Charlotte Hayward was seven and twenty years old. Lord Lithby’s only child by his first marriage, she was his only daughter and his pride and joy.

  Society’s sharpest critics could not fault her looks. They agreed that she was neither too short nor too tall, neither too plump nor too thin. Pale gold hair framed a face that met all the standards of classic beauty: Wedgwood blue eyes, an elegant nose, and Cupid’s bow lips, all of which a porcelain complexion set off most artistically. The many women who envied her found, to their exasperation, that it was impossible to hate her, because she was so good-natured, generous, and gracious.

  They had no idea how much work it was to be Lady Charlotte Hayward, and would have been flabbergasted to learn she envied a pig.

  She was wondering what it was like to roll about in the mud and root in the muck and not care what anyone thought, when her father said, “Charlotte, you really must marry, you know.”

  Her insides froze, and I really must kill myself, she thought.

  Within, it was as though she looked down from a cliff edge into an abyss. Outwardly, she offered no sign of uneasiness. Concealing undesirable emotions was second nature, after all.

  She turned an affectionate smile upon her father. She knew he loved her dearly. He didn’t mean to make her desperate. He had no idea what he was asking of her.

  How could she marry, and risk her secret being found out on her wedding night? The man whose property she’d become—how would he react if he realized his bride was not a virgin? How would she react? Could she lie well enough to persuade him he was mistaken? Did she want to begin her marriage with a lie? But how could she trust any man with the truth? How could she reveal her secret to him? How could she admit to all the betrayals she’d committed, and risk further betrayals of those she loved?

  She’d asked herself these and many other questions long ago. She’d pictured all the possible outcomes in her mind.

  She’d decided she’d better die a spinster.

  She could not say so to Papa. It was unnatural for a woman to wish to remain single.

  Since it was equally unnatural for a father to wish such a thing for his daughter, she could not be surprised at his bringing up the subject. Another father would have done so years ago. She ought to be grateful for the period of freedom she’d had. Yet she wondered, Why now? And she couldn’t help thinking, unhappily, Why ever?

  “A girl ought to marry, I know, Papa,” she said.

  But I can’t, she thought. I cannot marry with this secret burdening me, and I cannot reveal it.

  “You have been too unselfish for too long,” her father said, innocently unaware how he stabbed her guilty conscience. “I know you have put off your own happiness in order to be of help to your stepmother during her confinements. I know you love her. I know you love your little brothers. But my dear, it is time for you to have a household of your own, and children of your own.”

  Oh, it cut deep then, the grief, deeper than it had done in a long time.

  Children of her own.

  But he didn’t know the truth of what had happened ten years ago. He didn’t know what he was saying to her. He didn’t know how it hurt. He must never know.

  “I blame myself,” her father went on. “I have made a selfish habit of treating you like the son I thought I’d never have. Even now, though you’ve four brothers in the nursery, the habit is hard to break.”

  Her mother had died when she was not fifteen years old. To her shock, her father had wed again only a year later. Her stepmother Lizzie, a mere nine years older than she, was more like an older sister than a mother…though Charlotte had failed to grasp this at the time. Stupid, so stupid she’d been.

  “You’ve spoiled me, that is the trouble,” her father went on. “Not once since that terrible time when you were ill have you given me reason to worry or grieve. Instead, you’ve given of yourself—to all of us.”

  After bearing the baby he knew nothing about, she had been ill, truly, for a long time. After that terrible time, she’d vowed she never would again cause anyone she cared about a moment’s anxiety or sorrow or shame. She’d done enough damage—damage she could never undo—to last a lifetime.

  “Perhaps, too, I did not think any of the young men who swarmed about you could properly appreciate you,” Papa continued, explaining his thinking as he’d always done with her. “Naturally, you are kind to all your admirers, though not overly so, for your behavior is always above reproach. Yet none, I think, truly engaged your affections?”

  “None,” she said. “It is merely fate, I suppose.”

  “I am not sure one ought to trust to fate,” he said. “It worked in my favor, I readily admit. I was lonely after your mother died. I might have made a foolish mistake.”

  She, too, had been lonely after her mother died. When her father remarried, Charlotte had been—oh, she could hardly remember now, beyond a general recollection of a great misery. She had been vulnerable, at any rate. And Geordie Blaine had been there to take advantage.

  Her father was too kind to remind her of the mistake he believed she’d almost made. He thought he’d sent Blaine packing before any real harm was done.

  Even the two people who knew the truth never reminded her.

  Charlotte didn’t need reminding.

  Her father turned to her, his grey eyes unusually serious. Lord Lithby was a cheerful man, and most of the time his eyes sparkled with good humor. “Life is unpredictable, my dear. We cannot be sure of anything, except that we will all die one day.”

  Not many months ago a fever had nearly killed him.

  Her gloved hands tightened on the sty fence. “Oh, Papa, I wish you would not say such things.”

  “Death is inevitable,” he said. “In the winter when I was so beastly ill, I thought of so much left undone. One of my great anxieties was you. When I was gone, who would look after you?”

  Servants, she thought. Lawyers. Trustees. An heiress could always pay someone to look after her, and there would never be a shortage of people willing to take the job. The last girl in the world who needed a husband was a rich girl.

  Charlotte was a very rich girl. Her mother’s marriage settlement had included a generous provision for offspring. The marriage having produced only one child, Charlotte’s portion was considerable even for the daughter of a marquess.

  “I’m sorry to be a worry to you,” she said.

  He dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “Fathers are supposed to fret about their children. This is hardly a worry. It is simply a problem to be solved. Granted, I have never tried matchmaking before. I have given the business a great deal of thought, however. Once I was well again, I began to observe closely what went on during the Season.”

  The London Season was, among other things, the time for unwed aristocrats to find mates. Like the other unmarried ladies, Charlotte dutifully attended all the required social functions. Like the others, she put herself on display at the weekly subscription balls at Almack’s Assembly Rooms, to which only the cream of Society was admitted—for the meritorious purpose, it seemed to her, of confining excruciating boredom to a small, select circle.

  “Most girls find a husband during the Season,” Lord Lithby said. “But you have had eight Seasons. Since one cannot fault your behavior, the fau
lt must lie elsewhere. Having studied the matter, I have arrived at two conclusions: Firstly, the method is too haphazard. Secondly, London offers too many distractions. We must approach the problem scientifically, you see.”

  Lord Lithby was an agriculturalist. A member of the Philosophical Society, he was constantly reading pamphlets or writing papers on farming. He went on to explain that some of the principles employed in agriculture might be applied to human beings. What one needed was a system, and he had devised one.

  He had no idea how careful his daughter had been not to achieve the desired result. He had no idea how scientifically she had approached the problem of How Not to Get Married. Charlotte had devised a system years ago and continued to refine it.

  She had been blind once about a man. Never again.

  Thanks to the prolonged illness—of spirit as well as body—resulting from that error, she had made her debut belatedly at the age of twenty. Long before then, though, she was studying the gentlemen of her social circle, gauging their characters as carefully as her father gauged the characteristics of his turnips and beans, his cows and sheep and pigs. As her father studied ways to make his livestock and crops thrive, she studied ways to make men’s interest wane.

  She learned to be stupendously boring with one, bland to the point of invisibility with another. With some she’d talk incessantly. With others, she was silent. Sometimes she became absentminded and easily distracted. Sometimes she persisted in failing to recognize a man she’d met time and again. And more than once she’d led her suitor to another woman.

  This last maneuver wanted extreme care and subtlety.

  They all did, actually. No matter what technique she used, she must always appear sweetly obliging.

  It was uphill work for an attractive, rich girl not to get married and not get caught not getting married.

  She ought to be ashamed of herself for deceiving him, but the shame of the truth was many times worse.

  “Lizzie and I have made a list of fellows we believe you will find agreeable,” her father said. “In a month’s time, these gentlemen will arrive at Lithby Hall for a fortnight’s stay. Naturally, some of your girl cousins and friends will come as well, to make up the numbers. In this way, you’ll have a better chance to get to know the gentlemen. In turn, spared the distractions of Town, they will have a better chance to win your regard.” He beamed at her.

  Lord Lithby’s beams were not confined to a smile but, like the sun’s rays, seemed to radiate from his very being.

  Charlotte smiled back. How could she not, when he was so pleased with his terrifying idea?

  “If it does not work this time, we shall try again in the hunting season,” he said. “It is not as though we would not be entertaining guests in any event.”

  Though he added no “buts,” Charlotte heard one all the same.

  He had his heart set on her finding a husband by this method, and whatever he said, he was confident it would succeed the first time. He would be dreadfully disappointed if it didn’t.

  It would kill her to disappoint him.

  It would kill her to do as he wished.

  “I am sure it will work, Papa,” she said. “Of course I trust your judgment completely.”

  “There’s a good girl.” He patted her shoulder.

  That settled, and sublimely unaware of the bomb he’d set off inside her, he went on to other topics: something about the adjoining property…Chancery suit settled with miraculous speed…but Lord Hargate always…his sons…Carsington’s paper on salt…foot rot in sheep…

  She tried to pay attention but the noise inside her head made it impossible. Her mind bounded from one panicked thought to the next, one unwanted memory to another. She stared at the pig and wished for porcine contentment. She wished for Hyacinth’s utter certainty of her place and function in the world.

  Then Lord Lithby set out to talk to his head gamekeeper, and Charlotte went her own way, taking her tumultuous mind with her.

  Lord Lithby had been trying to tell his daughter about the property next door and its new occupant, Darius Carsington.

  Because Darius made no scandals and Lord Lithby paid little heed to gossip, he did not know—and if he did, probably would not care—that his new neighbor was a rake, impersonal or otherwise. All Lord Lithby cared about was that Lord Hargate’s youngest was a fellow member of the Philosophical Society who had authored several exciting papers on animal behavior and a number of remarkable pamphlets about livestock. Lord Lithby owned every one of these pamphlets. The one on pig farming, in particular, he considered momentous.

  Naturally he was delighted to have this brilliant fellow in charge of the derelict property on his western border.

  To his daughter Lord Lithby had explained about the Chancery suit and Lord Hargate’s astonishing feat in getting the case settled after a mere ten years. He spoke enthusiastically of Mr. Carsington’s studies of foot rot in sheep and his views regarding salt in livestock diets. He would call upon his new neighbor this day and invite him to dinner, he announced.

  His lordship might as well have addressed his remarks to the pig.

  Meanwhile, two miles away, Darius—who had as little to do with Fashionable Society as possible and would rather be gutted with a rusty blade than set foot in Almack’s—knew nothing of Lord Lithby’s plans, enthusiasms, or daughter.

  Lord Hargate’s aggravating son had arrived late the day before and spent the night at the Unicorn Inn in the market town of Altrincham, not three miles away. Though his mother had insisted on sending servants ahead to make the house, if not ready, at least habitable, Darius intended to ignore it.

  Restoring the building was illogical. It would only cost money; it would not bring in any. Staying at the inn was cheaper and easier. He need only pay his bill. He needn’t hire any servants in addition to his valet, Goodbody. He needn’t repair anything. Servants, supplies, and maintenance were the innkeeper’s problem. Furthermore, his land agent, Quested, had his office in Altrincham.

  The land was the priority. Thus, first thing this morning, he and the agent had made a tour of the estate.

  Matters were more or less as one would expect. With the property in dispute, nothing could be done legally to it or with it for ten years.

  Insects, birds, and assorted small animals had invaded many of the outbuildings, which were in varying stages of disrepair. The gardens had reverted to wilderness, the plantings overgrown where the weeds hadn’t strangled them. The wildlife seemed to be flourishing as well, although the vermin population was smaller than he’d expected.

  The great surprise was the home farm. This was not the abandoned ruin he’d envisioned. Someone—his father, most likely—must have circumvented the red tape and hired men to look after it.

  Nonetheless, when Quested left some hours later, he carried a long list of assignments, mostly having to do with hiring workers.

  Letting his brain rest from the weighing, measuring, and calculating, Darius took a walk through the jungle that used to be a landscaped park and made his way along an overgrown path to a stagnant pond. Here, spying dragonflies, he paused.

  One of the fellows of the Philosophical Society had written an article on dragonfly courtship that Darius considered fanciful. Insects, except for those troublesome to livestock, were not a particular interest of his. Nonetheless, he spared a passing glance for the dragonflies. Then, as so often happened, curiosity got the better of him.

  In a moment he was stretched out on his stomach amid the tall weeds, all his fierce intelligence focused on the fairylike creatures skimming over the water. Intent on trying to distinguish male from female without aid of a spyglass, he was deaf, dumb, and blind to everything else.

  A herd of stampeding bulls might have got his attention at this point, if it happened to be an especially large herd.

  Which explains why he was so slow to notice.

  He was distantly aware of muttering before it finally penetrated his mind. A moment later, he heard a t
wig snap. He lifted his head and turned that way.

  It was a girl, not ten feet away, and when his head came up out of the weeds, she shrieked and leapt straight up off the ground. She stumbled, and her arms flailed like confused windmills as she tried to regain her balance, but the ground was slick there, and she slid, heading straight for the mucky water. He was already on his feet and hurrying toward her while the birds flew up from the trees, their squawking drowning out the insects’ gentle drone.

  He got his arms round her middle as she slid downward, but she shrieked again when he touched her and nearly dragged them both into the scummy pond. He yanked her back, and the heel of her half boot hit his shin. In spite of his own boots, he felt it, and had to struggle for balance. He swore.

  “Calm down, curse you!” he snapped. “Do you mean to drown us both?”

  “Stop squeezing my bosom, you—you—” She pushed at his hands, and they began to slide again, toward the water.

  “I am not—”

  “Let me go!”

  He pulled again, hard, dragging her back toward level ground.

  “Let go! Let go!” She squirmed, shoving her elbow into his stomach.

  He let go so abruptly that she stumbled.

  She flung out her hand and grabbed his arm to keep from falling. “You beast! You did that on purpose!” She bent over, gasping for breath, still clutching his arm.

  “You told me to let go,” he said.

  She lifted her head then, and he found himself staring into an extraordinary world of blue that was her eyes. Everything else went away while he tried to take it in: the flawless oval face, as perfect as a cameo…the ivory skin brightening to pink along the delicately sculpted bones of her cheeks…the sultry pout of her parted lips.

  He watched the endless blue world of her eyes widen, and for a moment he forgot everything: where he was and who he was and what he was. Then he dragged a hand through his hair and wondered if he’d hit his head without realizing.