Barbara Metzger (6 page)

Chapter 7

Was he going to marry Miss Croft?

That’s what Ty had set out to do, when he read Lieutenant Croft’s letters in that Portuguese farmhouse. He owed a debt, he saw a need, he made a decision. The problem was, that farmhouse was a long way away, and he was here, in England.

No, the problem was that he had never actually planned on getting married until he’d read of George’s sister’s dilemma. A soldier could not, should not—and Ty would not—leave dependents behind, or leave half his wits with them at home. As for the succession, Viscount Tyverne had two brothers. Either one would make a better earl, according to the Earl of Stivern himself.

No, that was not the problem, either, Ty admitted to himself. The difficulty was that he did not like women, with all their moods and megrims. He did not understand them, with their fragility and foibles. Hell, the truth was he was terrified of the entire species.

Ty was a military man, not a Town beau. He’d gone from university scholar to soldier without ever going courting, without ever wooing a woman. He had avoided the officers’ wives and daughters as being more dangerous than the French, and visited the females of convenience only at his body’s insistence. The major was no monk, but he refused to surrender to man’s baser instincts, so even those visits were few.

He had scruples.

He had principles.

He had shaking knees.

Mindle mistook the wobbling for remnants of the fever, so the old butler refused to bring his lordship’s clothing, and Ty was too wrought to argue. If he was already in bed, Ty reasoned, at least he could not fall at Miss Croft’s feet. Again.

The venerable Mindle seemed to understand, for he brought a bit of brandy along with hot water for shaving. Dutch courage be hanged. Ty would take Irish pluck and Russian valor, too, if he had whiskey or vodka.

Washed, shaved, and combed, Ty was as ready as he was ever going to be. He’d faced down the earl, who’d gone into a thundering rage when he learned his heir was going into the army instead of politics, and he’d stood firm against the French. He’d even coped with the three crones of Faircroft House. Surely he could survive Miss Croft and a simple moposal of prarriage. Oh, God.

“Do you know, Mindle, I believe I am feeling warm again. Perhaps I should have that sleeping draught after all.”

Too late. The aged retainer was opening the door. “Miss Delia Croft,” he announced in formal tones.

Ah, so her name was Delia. At least he would not be wedding something that sounded like a cooking ingredient, Ty noted as he watched the slim woman enter the parlor and cross to his bedside. And his first impression had been correct: Miss Croft was no more pregnant than he was. The crying he had heard hadn’t come from an infant, he’d wager, but Aunt Eliza would have mentioned if the child had died. He’d worry about that later. Miss Croft did not smile. He’d worry about the placement of her teeth later, too. For now he’d concentrate on not stammering.

Miss Croft curtsied gracefully, and Ty inclined his head as well as he could manage, propped up among the pillows. She inquired into his health, and he briefly expressed gratitude for her hospitality. She sat on the nearby chair and took up her needlework. He bit the inside of his lip until he could taste blood.

Well, Delia thought, the major certainly had none of the reputed charm of Wellesley’s officers. He was as handsome as he could stare, now that the hectic flush had left his complexion, and his eyes were, in fact, a perfect summer-sky blue. Belinda’s dog, however, had better manners.

Major Tyverne cleared his throat, and Delia looked up expectantly. She thought he was finally going to explain his presence and his extraordinary proposition. Instead, the officer cleared his throat again.

“Do you need a drink? Shall I ask Mindle to bring tea?”

Not unless the old man laced it with nightshade this time, Ty thought. Brandy was simply not going to do the job. He shook his head. “No.” Lud, what if he had to use the necessary? “No thank you.”

Delia sighed. The guest was as conversable as he was convenient. She had other matters to attend to this morning, so said, “Perhaps you would tell me about George.”

Lud, Ty thought, what if she cried? He eyed the stack of handkerchiefs the estimable Mindle had placed near his bedside. No, there was not time enough to knot them into a noose to hang himself. Still, this was George’s sister. She had the right to know, and she did not seem the vaporish sort. Not yet, at any rate.

So he told Miss Croft about the battle and the retreat, how her dashing brother had ridden through a cloud of dust and despair to save his life. The telling loosened his tongue, although recalling the lieutenant’s final gap-toothed smile almost trapped the words in Ty’s throat. Miss Croft’s eyes—pretty green eyes, he noted—filled with tears, but she did not turn into a watering pot, thank goodness.

Then she asked how her brother had died. She was George’s sister, he told himself again, she had the right to know. So he lied. He talked about bravery and skill, and a quick, painless death.

When Miss Croft helped herself to one of the linen squares and blew her nose, Ty said, “So you see what a great debt I owe your brother.”

“Why, no, sir, I do not. He was a soldier at war. Coming to the aid of one’s fallen comrades must be part of an officer’s duties. You would have done the same for him, would you have not?”

“Of course. But I never had the opportunity. Your brother did, so the debt is mine. It is a matter of honor, you see.” He was certain she did not see. Women seldom understood codes of gentlemanly behavior or the ethics of war.

She nodded, though, as if she accepted his interpretation. “And so that is why you are here?”

Ty was relieved. A reasonable woman, after all, was George’s sister. “Yes.”

“To
...
?”

Dash it, he thought, she was going to make him say it! He swallowed once, twice, then said, “I am here to offer for your hand in matrimony, Miss Croft, if you would do me the honor.” There, he’d gotten the words out without a single missed syllable, just as he’d been practicing for the last fortnight. He must have given a sigh of relief, for the woman frowned.

“Why,” she asked after a moment’s deliberation, “do you think I would take a stranger as husband?”

In all of Ty’s rehearsals, Croft’s sister had thanked him for the honor of his offer, and agreed to make him the happiest of men. Now he’d be happy if the ground opened up. Feeling a warm flush that had nothing to do with fever spread across his cheeks, he confessed to reading her letter. “I felt it was necessary, to ensure the well-being of Lieutenant Croft’s dependents.”

Delia stabbed her needle into the fabric she was stitching. “And when you read that we were at point-non-plus, you decided to ride
ventre à terre
to present yourself as the sacrificial lamb.”

“That was, ah, not precisely as I would have expressed the situation.”

“No? You did not gallop straight here from your sickbed—”

He interrupted. “I stopped in Canterbury for a special license.”

“—to immolate yourself on the pyre of wedlock?” Delia pulled her needle so hard she snapped the thread.

He should have known she would not understand. What woman could? “I saw it as a matter of honor, as I said, a debt to be repaid.”

“If you felt you owed George a debt, why did you not offer us financial assistance? A loan or something?”

“My knowledge of the social niceties might be deficient, but my understanding is that an exchange of money between an unmarried lady and a gentleman is tantamount to an acceptance of a proposal—or a slip on the shoulder.”

Now it was Delia’s turn to blush. “Quite. I would not have accepted monies, even if you had claimed a gambling debt to George.”

Ty wished he’d thought of that, but no amount of brass could restore a woman’s reputation. He watched as she fussed with her sewing. Surely that was an infant’s gown Miss Croft was stitching, so all the weeping and praying had not been for a lost child. He’d need to make arrangements: formalize his guardianship, establish an annuity, locate a decent family. It was somewhat like finding a good home for one’s favorite old pony.

The ordinary act of rethreading her needle restored Delia’s composure. “Tell me, my lord”—somehow, discussing Tyverne’s patronizing, pompous, and presumptuous proposal made him more the viscount, less the military man— ”do you
wish
to get married? It seems to me that you must have had any number of opportunities, had you so desired.”

“I have certain family obligations that make taking a wife at this time desirable,” he extemporized. “The succession and such.”

“Yet you became a soldier without worrying over carrying on your line.” It was more an accusation than a question.

“I had two brothers.”

“Had?”

Dash it, Ty wondered, was this a court-martial or a marriage proposal? He loosened the cloth Mindle had tied around his neck to make him more presentable for lady callers. “I still have two brothers, Miss Croft, yet now I see where my own duty lies.”

“A duty such as marriage to me would be?”

He nodded.

“A duty fulfilled and a repayment of your debt to George for your life at the same time?”

There, she did understand! “Precisely.”

Delia gave up on her sewing before she mangled the little gown beyond repair—or stuck her needle in this dolt’s big toe, tempting under the nearby covers. The clunch did not begin to comprehend how a woman might be insulted to be seen in the light of a debt or duty. Still, watching his lordship struggle like a trout on the line was almost worth the aggravation. Not that Delia was a cruel woman, just that she’d reached the end of her tether. She needed a miracle, not a muddleheaded, misguided moron who thought he was doing her a favor.

Because his motives were honorable—hen-witted, but honorable—she did not storm out of the room. Instead, she asked, “Why do you not tell me about your brothers?”

Ty sighed. The woman was worse than a weasel with a rat. Now that she’d stopped sewing, Miss Croft was giving Ty her full attention. That cold green-eyed gaze could freeze a man in his boots, if he were wearing any. “We were, ah, four siblings. Three boys and a girl. I am the eldest.”

“Archimedes.”

Ty grimaced and muttered something unsuitable for a stable, much less a lady’s presence. “How the deuce
...
? Oh, my papers.”

“We had to read them when you fell,” she echoed sweetly, “to see if you had dependents nearby.”

Ty went back to chewing on his lip. After a moment or two, Delia said, “I suppose the boys at school called you Archie?”

“Only once. I was always big for my size, and strong. I was born a viscount, Tyverne, so that is what I am called. Totty—Aristotle—comes next, then Nonny, whose actual name is Agamemnon. Our mother died giving birth to our sister.”

“Goodness, Alcestes? Alcmene? Ariadne?”

“Ann. Mother was the one with the classical leanings, not my sire. The earl happened to be around for that birth, and the countess’s death, so he had the naming of the infant.”

That seemed all the viscount had to say on the matter, although what he had not said piqued Delia’s interest. After another silence, she asked, “Is it not unusual for the eldest son to take up colors?”

“If you must know”—and he supposed she must., if they were to wed. Miss Croft would hear the story quickly enough when they went to London—”my father and I do not get along.” And that was as much of an understatement as calling the war against Napoleon a skirmish.

“Oh?”

Oh, hell.

Chapter 8

The deuced woman wanted more. They always did. By strength of will alone did Ty keep from squirming on the bed like a recalcitrant three-year-old. Bad enough the blasted female hadn’t simply accepted his eminently sensible—and spotlessly executed, if Tyverne had to say so himself—proposal. Worse that she was putting him through the Spanish Inquisition. Worst of all, this dogged determination to have his privates on a platter did not bode well for a comfortable marriage. Not at all. Viscount Tyverne never spoke about his father, not to anyone. Ever.

“Your father?”

He closed his eyes. “My father wished me to marry the young woman of his choice, the daughter of a duke who had no other heir. The court was to be petitioned to combine the titles, and the fortunes, of course. She was fifteen. I was nineteen. I refused.”

“Good for you!”

He opened his eyes to give her a disgruntled look. “My father cut me off without a shilling. I stayed at university on a loan against expectations, and by tutoring other boys. I also had a small sum set aside, from my godfather. The duke’s wife died some years later, and he remarried within three months, with hopes of a male heir.” Ty scowled at the memory. “His daughter ran off with an Irish groom while he was on honeymoon.”

“Good for her.”

“How could living in a thatch-roofed cottage on potatoes and cabbage be good for her?”

“If it was what she wanted—”

“She wanted to avoid marriage to me if I could be coerced into it, if her new stepmother failed to provide the requisite son.”

“And then?”

“Then the earl tried to convince me to wed another woman of his choice, promising to restore my income. He was now determined that I enter politics, envisioning his heir a member of the cabinet at least. A properly advantageous marriage would further Stivern’s ambitions for me, and that young lady’s father was a leader in Parliament. I almost agreed. University life was growing tiresome. So was penury.”

“But you did not.”

“I did not. The earl had plans for all of his children. Totty, the second son, was to go into the army. Totty, however, is a gentle soul who is only happy around horses. He lives and breathes them. All he ever wished to do was breed horses, not see them killed in a cavalry charge. Stivern did not care; Tolty was going to fight for his country. I reasoned, however, that if I signed up instead, Father would never jeopardize his spare heir. I bought my commission the day I attained my majority. I repaid my loans, sent the duke’s daughter and her Irish husband a bank draft as a belated wedding gift, and gave Totty money to purchase a farm in the Colonies. He swears he will never come home.”