A Country Wooing (14 page)

Alex needed money, certainly, but it was only a temporary shortage. Even the extra debt to Exmore didn’t positively eclipse him. How could he smile so dotingly on Miss Anglin when it was her he loved? She had been drawing near to this conclusion for several days and was convinced she was right. Every word he said, every look and gesture, proclaimed it, but since the moment he had been presented to Miss Anglin, he hadn’t once looked in her direction.

She almost began to think he had suffered a change of heart. His interest in her had been equally sudden, when she took time to think about it. He hadn’t used to care for her, but then, on the day he had come home, he had begun dangling after her most markedly. He hadn’t actually seen any other girls since he had come. This was the first time he had gone into public society, and at his first exposure to other girls, he’d forgotten her. He had been lonesome in Spain and latched on to the first English lady he came across; that was all it was.

What a fool she had been to think it meant anything. Really, she hardly knew Alex. He was another Charles in the petticoat line and would likely end up chasing all the girls, now that he was out in public. Yes, there had been an air of his being very much aware of his own attractiveness, as she considered it.

He finally tore himself away from the Anglins and danced with some of his old friends, the rector’s daughters and others, but when it was time for dinner, he came back to Mrs. Wickfield and Anne.

“Rosie is picking out a table large enough for us all,” he said, offering each lady an arm. Anne was hurt and angry, but she was too proud to allow it to show. The cunning Rosalie had found a table large enough for not only their party but the entire Anglin ménage as well.

“How nice,” Anne said brightly.

She pretended not to notice when Alex drew Mrs. Anglin’s chair. Robin did the pretty for her, whispering in her ear, “Be prepared to duck the splash of dunking biscuits.”

Mrs. Anglin did not dunk her biscuits, for no biscuits were served. She did not eat her peas with her knife or her chicken with her fingers or do any other uncivilized thing. Till the dessert was served, she did nothing to disgrace herself, unless some high sticklers might consider a nearly total silence a disgrace. It’s true she took up a spoon rather than a fork for dessert, but as soon as she saw the duchess pick up a fork, she quietly changed her spoon for the proper utensil.

Mr. Anglin, who preferred to be called Albion, was a loud, clamoring man with a voice that could be heard a county away. He was red of complexion, gray-haired, and looked extremely uncomfortable in his tight-fitting jacket and cravat, though both were of the finest workmanship.

Rosalie saw he was one of those men no tailor could do anything with. Weston himself couldn’t make a gentleman of this cit. She could not like his bragging about being a shopkeeper, and while she adored that he was good for a million pounds if sold out on the spot, she could not admire his saying it so publicly, so loud, and so often. It was clearly his way of calculating a man’s true worth, to put him up on the auction block with all his worldly goods and chattels and see just what price he would fetch under the hammer.

“What do you figure Altmire’s worth?” he asked Alex. He had singled out Penholme as his special confidant. “If Ronleigh Hall and all the heirlooms and artworks and the rest of it were put on the block, would he fetch a million, do you figure?”

“I confess I have no idea,” Alex answered.

“Do you know what I figure he’s worth? Seventy-five thousand pounds. That’s what. I did a little calculating ...” He went on to advise Alex how he had made a swift assessment of furnishings and acres on his one visit to Ronleigh Hall and come up with the sum of seventy-five thousand pounds. “Not guineas, mind—pounds! And that’s assuming he has no mortgage, which I couldn’t find out,” he added scrupulously. “It’s odd, don’t ye think, that a man of so little goods is tooted up as a nabob?”

“The Altmires have always had a deal of influence in the political field,” Alex explained, but the cabinet members, the positions at court, the directorship of several large companies—all were wiped away by a sweep of Albion’s arm.

“Seventy-five thousand pounds. That’s what he could come up with if he sold everything he owns. I could buy him up and never feel the pinch.”

Alex sat waiting for an assessment of himself if sold up, and disliked having to confess to mortgages. But no confession was necessary. Albion knew it all. “I hear that brother of yours got you into deep water before he passed on,” he said in a loud voice.

“We are experiencing a temporary difficulty,” Alex admitted with foreboding of more minute revelations to come.

“He was an expensive fellow. What he took out on Penholme must bring your mortgage to something in the neighborhood of forty thousand,” he ventured with a brightly questioning eye.

“Something like that,” Alex admitted.

“Of course, you’ve got the other little place I’ve heard Lord Robin mention—Sawburne, I think it’s called.”

“Yes, with five hundred acres. That is Robin’s inheritance, however.”

“That’s wise of you.” Albion congratulated him with such an approving nod that Alex had to wonder what he meant. He wasn’t left long in doubt. “The thing is, as ye obviously know very well, the agents will move slow in taking Penholme away from you. Only a small market for them big places, whereas any number of folks would be after a tidy little property like Sawburne. Then, too, they hesitate to move against a noble family property. If push came to shove, what would be done is they’d sell Sawburne on you and take the revenue to pay the interest on the Penholme mortgage. With Sawburne safe in Lord Robin’s name, they must take Penholme or nothing. They’ll think a long while before they pull a stunt like that on a veteran. You got something for those three years spent in Spain.”

“We’re not in quite such deep waters as that,” Alex assured him. “I’d sell the London place before I’d let them take Penholme.”

“By the time you’d paid off the London mortgage, though, there’d not be much left.”

“The London house is not mortgaged,” Alex said, pokering up at such detailed and public inquisition.

“Is that so? Is that so, indeed? I heard otherwise.” An extremely disbelieving eye narrowed on Penholme.

Alex looked at him in alarm. “May I ask where you heard it, sir?”

“In the city. I have many contacts there. Of course, they’re not your set and were very likely out in their news. Naturally you know whether the London house is mortgaged.”

“It isn’t,” Alex said firmly, but was soon besieged by a doubt. There had never been a mortgage on the London house. Surely Charles hadn’t put one on it, as well as Penholme and Sawburne and selling the hunting box outright and the loan from Exmore. No one, not even Charlie, could have gone through such a mountain of money as that. He shook away the nagging worry and listened to Albion.

“What kind of a place is Spain? Any money to be made at all?”

“I spent my time in the mountains and bogs. I wasn’t thinking about making money but saving my skin,” Alex said.

“I see no possibilities for Spain,” Albion admitted sadly. “Their leather is good, but with the supply cut off since the war, folks have gotten out of the way of demanding Spanish leather. And after the war, the metal in demand will be iron for plowshares, not fine steel for swords. Italy, now—there’s the olive oil trade, and some halfway decent dry goods. I did a tidy bit of trade with Italy.”

The next victim for Albion’s financial scrutiny was Exmore, who had to endure having his possessions shouted across the table.

The meal was some strange combination of comedy and farce, with Albion clearly the leading character. His companions were by turn embarrassed by him and for him, but he had no notion he was doing anything but showing a polite interest. The matter of paramount importance in his world was money; he rarely discussed anything else, and he was as eager to present his own financial statement as to hear anyone else’s.

He meant to see his daughters marry above themselves—a title, if possible—and he was willing to pay out a reasonable sum for the privilege. It was as well as settled in his own mind that he would have to redeem Sawburne and eventually add a few thousand acres to it. Five thousand, he figured for a wedding gift to the couple, with, say, twenty-five thousand for Maggie’s dowry. He had as yet no accurate idea what the title of countess was worth on the market, but he would look into it—scan the recent transactions in London and see what Rogers had paid for his daughter’s title. He didn’t intend to be rooked, but on the other hand, he was not a skint. He’d make a fair barter.

Of all the noble crowd, it was Rosalie he liked best. Her husband was a stiff-rumped dullard, and Penholme, too, a bit high in the instep, but Rosalie was what he’d call a real lady. The saucy minx even got him to stand up with her for a country dance—jigging was a thing he didn’t do in the usual way—but she had such a cute manner about her that he was beguiled into it. Even if she hadn’t been a duchess, he would have done it.

When she called him Albion and smiled at him, he half felt he was Lord Albion, and his old chest swelled. Her hints that Penholme was attracted to Marilla went down exceedingly well, and when she batted her long lashes at him and said of course poor Penholme was dreadfully in trouble and wouldn’t bring too tidy a sum if sold up, he said merrily that there was no problem in that, begad, no problem at all.

Alex asked Anne to stand up for another dance after dinner. She accepted, but with little enthusiasm. Alex observed her stiff face and tried to talk her back into spirits.

“You’re peeved to see us making such a fuss over the Anglins,” he said.

“Not in the least. I am only relieved Albion didn’t put Mama and me on the block. We would have blushed to admit our combined resources are not more than five hundred per annum—the sum Maggie gets for pin money, as we all know now. Since the way out of one’s fiscal difficulties is to marry a merchant, I am sorry Mr. Anglin has no sons.”

“I know you don’t like to see such blood come into the family, but there’s a time for everything, and this is
not
the time to pull pedigree. We have to come down off our high ropes and do what we can to redeem our former glory. Rosalie is right, you know.”

“Who am I to contradict a duchess?”

“Old Anglin is not overly refined, but the girls are quite nice, don’t you think?”

It angered her that she could find no real fault in them. “Which one is it you fancy, Alex?” she asked.

“The question is which does Rob fancy, and it is, of course, the younger, Maggie. I prefer the elder myself.”

“That is convenient, then—it won’t be necessary for you and Robin to draw straws.”

“It wouldn’t do for me to dangle after Rob’s woman, would it? Though I must say, he seems a little more attracted to mine than I can quite like.”

Anne took a quick breath and stiffened. “I never noticed it. I don’t think he cares for her overly much,” she said with a glance around the room for Miss Anglin. Sure enough, there was Robin capering at her heels. But it was usually Maggie that Robin spoke of.

“
I
have noticed it. Unless I make a beeline to her chair, he beats me to her every time. And since he’s become so stylish in Charlie’s outfits, there’s no denying he cuts a good figure. Annie, we can’t talk here. Let’s sit this dance out.” He walked from the floor, holding her arm in a tight grip.

An angry spark lit her eye. “You’ll have to trim him into line, Major.”

Alex’s jaw firmed, and when he reached the edge of the room, he kept walking to the door. He opened it and they went out into the cool night. This was considered rather racy behavior, but Anne was old enough and Alex high enough that it was saved from being called fast.

“I have more than one rebel to trim into line. What are
you
so angry about? I seem to have missed a beat here.”

“You were never so on the mark as Charles and Robin,” she snipped.

An angry flush rose from his collar, and his voice when he answered was thin. “I never hoped to compete with Charles, certainly, but I didn’t look to Robin for competition.”

“Then you shouldn’t have been egging him on to admire the Anglins so assiduously, ever since your return. It’s you who put this idea of marrying an Anglin in his head. He never mentioned it till you came back, expressing concern that he not dangle after an ‘ineligible lady.’ Between you and Rosalie, you’re as good as pushing him to the altar.”

Alex gave a frown of confusion. “An eligible lady would be the best thing for him—for us both, and you must know it as well as anyone. How else is he to make a go of Sawburne?”

She heard that unthinking “us both” and was turned to stone, which soon heated to lava. “Is that why you are in such an almighty rush to give it to him? So he’ll be hobbled with the mortgage and
have
to marry her?”

Alex stared in disbelief. “You make me sound like a conniving monster! I’m giving it to him because I know how it feels to be robbed by your own brother. Yes, I dare to utter the bald truth about Charles. If any of us are forced into irregular matches, it is Charles who is to blame, not I. I didn’t mortgage Robin’s inheritance. But I know you won’t say a word against Charles, so you’ll just have to smile and bear it that a Penholme marries a cit’s daughter.”

“An officer and a gentleman should have the gumption to take responsibility for his own life. Very few men are born with silver spoons in their mouths. They don’t all use it as an excuse to make a profitable marriage of convenience.”

“I take full responsibility for my own life, not Robin’s.
I’m
not the one planning to marry an Anglin. Though Robin is, I trust, a gentleman, you forget he was never an officer. I don’t know what had been between the two of you before my return. Of course, he bears a strong superficial resemblance to Charles, and that must always attract you, eh, Anne? I happened not to be born with a hero’s face and physique, but by God I’d rather be my ugly self than a beautiful sham.”

“Robin is not a sham!”