Amanda Scott (32 page)

“It was,” Anne said, smiling back at him, “but all that was needed was organization. Quigley did not have the courage to proceed without orders from you, and before that, your brother had taken no interest in the gardens. If anything was done, it was the duchess who ordered it, which is no doubt why, of all the servants here, Quigley was the least opposed to taking orders from me when I first arrived.”

“Well, I think you deserve a reward,” Michael said, smiling warmly at her.

“What did you have in mind?”

“The garden room at Rendlesham,” he said, watching her.

Puzzled, she said, “But what can you mean? The garden room at Rendlesham is at Rendlesham. Unless, of course, you mean I might pay a visit there. It is rather soon for that, I think.”

“Indeed, it is, sweetheart. I shouldn’t know how to get on here without you. I meant only that I remember that room quite well from our wedding breakfast. A very charming room, I thought it. I particularly like the way it opens right into the garden, and since you are so partial to our gardens, I thought you might like to reproduce it here. Could that be done, do you think?”

“Oh, yes, certainly. The yellow drawing room would be perfect, for it faces directly out onto the southwest gardens. The increasing elevation there would make it fairly easy to open it to the outside, just as Papa did at home. But it would be an enormous expense, sir. I do not know who designed ours, but he was some fashionable architect or other, and I know Papa complained forever about the cost of the whole project.”

Michael grimaced. “Well, we cannot do the thing at once, but I thought you might like the notion. If I can get everything straightened out, we’ll talk about it some more, and if we cannot do it here, perhaps we can do it at Egremont.”

Encouraged by the warmth of his manner, and the fact that he did not, for the moment, seem to be thinking of selling his estate, she said, “You know, sir, I have been thinking about all that, and it occurs to me that perhaps Papa might be persuaded—”

“No, Anne.”

“But, really, sir—”

“I said no. I have revealed as much as I intend to reveal to your father about the difficulties arising from my brother’s death. I won’t go to him with my hat in my hand. Moreover, things have got a bit more complicated, I’m afraid. I managed to have a talk with Jake’s man of affairs today, and not only was he unable to help me with that partnership matter I mentioned to Lady Thornton yesterday, but he cannot find the vowel Jake showed me when he informed me of the wager’s existence.”

“Then you need not pay it! If there is no record—”

Regarding her soberly, he said, “A debt of honor does not require a record, Anne. It must be repaid.”

She would have pursued the subject, for she could not imagine that anyone should be held responsible for a debt of which there was no record, but they were interrupted before she could do so.

Lord Ashby, who had missed dinner in order to see to the bestowal of his precious new aerostat, which had arrived on a carter’s wagon that very afternoon, entered the library clearly big with news, with Andrew at his heels. Without ceremony, Lord Ashby demanded, “Did you know Jake Thornton’s man, Styles, arrived at Thornton Hall this morning, Michael?”

“I did. I’ve spoken to him.”

“Dashed foolishness, if you ask me, to have brought that matter up with him or with Maria. Now the whole untidy business will be chatted about in every household in Derbyshire.”

“Good Lord, Uncle, would you have me cheat her?”

“No, no. But look here,” he added with a glance at the interested and rather stormy-faced Andrew, “that ain’t what I came to tell you; although, by Jove, it’s amazing to me that nothing’s been said about it long before now. You’d think the rumor mills would have got hold of it straight off. They usually do, in my experience, no matter what one does to prevent them.”

“If that is not your news, sir, what is it?”

“Thought you might already have heard it, but I can see it ain’t come here yet, for you’re both looking at me as if I were speaking in tongues, which it stands to reason you wouldn’t be if you’d already heard. Can’t say too much in present company, by Jove,” he added with a glance at Andrew. “In any case, I needn’t explain it to you in great detail, for you’ll understand well enough when I say that one of my lads heard Jake left every dashed penny he had to Maria and the children. Word is, it was such a shock to the poor woman that she dropped down in a swoon and couldn’t be revived for all of twenty minutes.”

“I hadn’t heard,” Michael said. “I didn’t ask Styles how things were left, of course. None of my affair. And I readily confess I don’t get the local news as easily as you seem to do.”

“It’s not fair,” Andrew muttered so low that Anne was not sure anyone but herself had heard him.

Uneasily certain that she understood his meaning, she shot him a warning look, but he was glaring at the world in general and did not heed her.

Michael said, “I’m glad to hear that Jake did as he ought. It would have been a pity if he had done anything else.”

“The house, perhaps,” Lord Ashby said delicately with another glance at Andrew. “That, at least, wouldn’t have shocked anyone, particularly if he had arranged the matter quietly.”

“There’s already been scandal enough without that,” Michael said. “But you are quite right, sir, in that we ought not to be talking of it now. Where have you been keeping yourself since dinner, Andrew? I trust you’ve done nothing to outrage Mr. Pratt, for I’ve found it most pleasant these past several days to receive no complaints of your behavior.”

“I went for a walk along the river with Sylvia,” Andrew said, looking up from his shoes at last. “She likes to walk there sometimes, you know.”

“No, I didn’t. I hope you also brought her back.”

“Of course, I did. I’m not a fool, though you certainly take me for one often enough.”

“Steady on,” Michael said sternly. “You won’t help matters by taking that tone with me. I acquit you of wishing to drown your sister. I collect that she went upstairs.”

“Yes,” Andrew said with a sigh. “We met Uncle Ashby coming from the meadow, and walked with him. Sylvie stepped in a puddle and got her feet wet, so I sent her up to change her shoes, although, once Moffat gets her hands on her, she will probably find herself straightaway tucked into bed. I came in here because Uncle Ashby did, but you needn’t all continue talking in riddles. I have already heard all about Sir Jacob’s will.”

“Nevertheless, it is not a matter for you to discuss.”

“I don’t see why not. I have as much right to an opinion as anyone does, I should think. This is still a free country.”

“It is,” Michael said evenly, “but that does not mean that we want to hear the comments of a stripling on matters that do not concern him.”

“It does concern me, for I care prodigiously about what happens—That is, I think … I think the whole business is an outrage, and most unfair, and for them even to be taking Fiona’s house away is the outside of enough!”

A horrified silence filled the room, and Anne, seeing the dawning expression of outrage on Lord Michael’s face, felt a pulse begin to thud in her temple and her knees begin to quake.

A
NDREW DID NOT APPEAR
to be nearly as affected by Michael’s growing wrath as Anne was, but Lord Ashby said as if he felt a need to defuse the situation, “By Jove, we’re a fine set of gossips, are we not? And I, at least, have little time for such chatter, for I’ve any number of things to do before the lads and I can begin filling the new aerostat tomorrow. I think you ought to take a stroll down to the meadow first thing, Michael, my boy, to have a good view when we begin to fill it. Not taking it up till Sunday, of course, but must check the new bag for leaks, you know, before the grand ascension. Wouldn’t do to have the thing sit flat before all its subscribers, now, would it?”

Michael was not even looking at him. His gaze was still fixed on Andrew, and it was plain to the meanest observer that he was keeping a tight rein on his temper. He said, “Would you care to explain that last remark of yours to me?”

“I cannot see that any remark of mine requires explaining,” Andrew said stubbornly. “Sir Jacob’s will was unfair, that’s all, and I think someone ought to help her.”

“Help whom?” Michael’s tone was dangerously gentle.

“Fiona, of course.”

Lord Ashby said hastily, “I’ll just take myself off now, if you all will excuse me. Much to do, much to do.” He turned sharply toward the door.

“Hold on one moment, sir, if you will,” Michael said, standing up. “Do you know aught of this business?”

“Only what I can deduce for myself, which I can’t say I like one little bit,” he declared with a harassed look at Andrew. “I didn’t introduce them, if that’s what you think, though if you do, you’ve a dashed poor notion of my character and good sense, and that’s all I’ll say about that, by Jove. I’m off now.”

Silence reigned until the door had shut behind him. Anne sat rooted to her chair, scarcely daring to breathe lest Michael turn his attention to her and demand to know what she knew of the matter. The thought weighed heavily on her conscience that, had she not spoken with Mrs. Flowers herself at their public day, Andrew would have been unlikely ever to have encountered her, and augmenting her guilt unbearably was the knowledge that duty alone had demanded her intervention the moment she learned he had formed the habit of visiting such a woman. The thought of how greatly she was to blame for the present scene turned the beating pulse in her right temple to a throbbing pain.

“Where do you think you are going?” Michael demanded when Andrew turned on his heel as if to follow Lord Ashby.

He stopped but did not turn. “I have things to do, too.”

“Not yet, you don’t. Step forward, sir.”

With a sigh, Andrew turned around and did as he was told.

“Stand up straight.”

Resentfully, the boy glanced at Anne, but he made no comment, merely obeying stiffly as he had before.

“By heaven,” Michael said angrily, “you will show proper courtesy and respect and a little less of your ducal pretension, or you will wish you had. Put your hands behind your back, sir, and look at me when I speak to you.”

Seeing the boy stiffen indignantly and glance her way again, Anne collected herself at last, standing up and saying, “I will leave you now, my lords.”

“Don’t go,” Michael said curtly. “This will not take long.”

“I am sure you would prefer to be private with His Grace,” she said firmly, repressing an urge to rub her aching temple and taking care to accord Andrew an extra measure of dignity, in hopes that it might mitigate his humiliation at being reprimanded in her presence. She was anxious to leave, not on his account alone, but also for her own sake. She was certain that Michael would soon learn all there was to know about the boy’s visits to Mrs. Flowers, and she did not trust Andrew not to reveal that she had known about them for some time.

“I would rather be private with you,” Michael said, giving her a steady look, “and as soon as I have dealt with him, I shall be. Moreover, there is no real need for privacy. I mean to say nothing to him that you should not hear.”

“Nonetheless, sir, I ought not to stay, for it is—”

“You may say all that you want to say to me in just a few minutes,” he said gently. When she had sat down again, he said on a much firmer note, “Am I given to understand from your comment a moment ago, Andrew, that you have, by some means or other, developed an acquaintance in the village with the woman called Fiona Flowers?”

“Yes, of course I know her.”

“You will have to forgive me,” Michael said, moving a little away from him to sit on a corner of the library table he used as a desk, “but there is no
of course
about such an acquaintance. Did she have the effrontery to approach you?”

“No, and it would not have been effrontery if she had.
She
treats me with respect, which is more than I am accorded around here, I can tell you.”

“You may certainly tell me anything you like,” Michael said evenly if—in his wife’s opinion, at least—quite inaccurately, “but you would do better to moderate your tone if we are not to fall out again. If Mrs. Flowers did not accost you, then how, may I ask, did you chance to meet her?”

Anne held her breath. She had relaxed a little when Michael moved away from the boy, but the small throbbing pain that had begun in her temple had already enlarged itself to encompass most of the area around her right ear.

Andrew stared straight ahead, not meeting Michael’s gaze. He said, “I spoke with her at our public day. I tried to speak with as many of our guests as I could, just as you said I should. There is nothing in that to call for reproach, I hope.”

“I know she was there,” Michael said, “but if you merely accorded her a few polite words of welcome, I cannot imagine you would exclaim as you did a few moments ago. Would you have me believe that is the only time you ever spoke with her?”

“No, of course not. But she was kind to me then, and I said I should like to pursue the acquaintance. And you needn’t think she jumped at the chance, for she did not. She said it would not be thought suitable, and I said, if you
must
know, that I didn’t care a rap for what others thought. And then she said that if I wished to visit her in the village, I would always be welcome. She said the same to Sylvia, too,” he added with an air of throwing down the gauntlet.

Michael’s expression hardened. He said with deceptive gentleness, “And did you take Sylvia with you, sir?”

To Anne’s relief, Andrew quickly saw that he had erred, and moderated his tone when he said, “No, for whatever you may think of me, I do know that such an acquaintance would not do for her. But I am nearly a man, for all you treat me as though I were still in leading strings, and when I am old enough to mount a mistress of my own—”

“Good Lord,” Michael snapped, “what sort of relationship have you had with this woman?”

“She has been kind to me,” Andrew said grimly. “I like talking to her, for she talks to me just as she would to any other man—although with proper deference to my rank, of course—and she has always made me feel welcome. She doesn’t treat me like a child, either, but talks to me about important things, like … like what’s going on in Parliament and what she thinks about matters one does not expect females to care about.”