Edenbrooke (13 page)

Philip and I had taken five rides together, and he had beaten me five times, when a letter arrived for me one morning. I was frustrated, because I knew that Meg had untapped potential within her, and I was determined to prove it.

“One of these days, you will be seeing the backside of Meg,” I told Philip as I sat down to breakfast.

He laughed with the familiar glint in his eyes that made me think he was enjoying a secret. He had too many secrets. I narrowed my eyes at him, but by now I knew him too well to hope that he would reveal any of his mysteries to me.

The butler cleared his throat as he held a silver salver toward me. On it rested a letter. The envelope bore Grandmother’s familiar, shaky handwriting. She must have mailed this immediately after I left Bath for it to have arrived so soon. I set it beside my plate and looked at it with misgiving. Seeing it made me anxious, as if I had been living in a dream. I feared whatever the letter contained would cause me to wake. I decided to read it later, in private.

Lady Caroline spoke up. “I think we ought to host a ball for our guests while they’re here. What do you all think?”

Mrs. Clumpett looked up with her ready smile. “Oh, I love a ball. And so does Mr. Clumpett. Don’t you, my dear?”

I couldn’t imagine that he actually loved a ball, but he grunted in response.

“Philip?” Lady Caroline said. “Do you have any objections?”

“You know you have free rein here, Mother.”

That seemed odd. Why should she have to ask his permission to hold a ball? If she needed to ask anyone, it should have been Sir Charles.

“I think a ball will be delightful,” she said. “We’ll introduce Marianne to all the eligible gentlemen in the area and watch them fight over her. What fun it will be!”

I looked at her in surprise and blushed. “I am sure you’re mistaken about the level of interest I will inspire,” I murmured.

“I am never mistaken about such things,” she said, smiling like a cat before a dish of cream. “What do you think, Philip? Won’t she be all the rage?”

I couldn’t look at Philip. He would undoubtedly say something polite, which everyone would know was a lie. But then, when he didn’t immediately answer, I
had
to look at him. I was so surprised by what I saw that I looked twice.

Philip held his mother’s gaze with a hard look in his eyes. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He almost looked angry, but I couldn’t fathom why her words would spark such a reaction in him.

Lady Caroline’s smile turned hard—almost mocking—from across the table.

After a tense silence, he finally said, “Undoubtedly.”

I took a quick breath. Something was amiss here, and it made me uncomfortable to be the cause of it. “A ball sounds wonderful,” I said, wanting to clear the tension, “but I have no desire to be fought over. I would rather just enjoy the dancing.”

Mr. Clumpett suddenly looked up from his book. “This sounds very much like something I just read.” He flipped through some pages while I looked at him in surprise. I didn’t think he had been listening to us at all. “Ah, here it is.” He cleared his throat before reading: “‘The male rhinoceros will not tolerate any other male entering his territory during mating season. If such a thing occurs, dangerous fights are bound to ensue.’”

He looked up with bright eyes. “That would be a sight to see, wouldn’t it? A dangerous rhinoceros fight?”

“Fascinating,” his wife said with feeling.

I stared. Had he really just read something over breakfast about animals
mating
? I didn’t know where to look in my embarrassment. Philip cleared his throat, but it sounded to me as if he was trying not to laugh.

“Very
apropos,
” Lady Caroline said with a smile. “Well, then, it is settled. I will organize the guest list and start writing the invitations this afternoon.”

I took that as permission to excuse myself; I was eager to escape the charged emotions of the room. I picked up my letter and walked to the door. But I felt a gaze on my back as I did so, and I glanced over my shoulder. Philip was watching me with a very solemn expression. I gave him a questioning look in return. Abruptly he smiled, and all traces of that foreign look were erased. It lingered in my mind, though, as I left the dining room. In that moment, Philip had reminded me very much of someone else, but I couldn’t think of whom.

I sat at the writing desk in my room and stared at Grandmother’s letter for several minutes before daring to open it. Finally, I succumbed to the inevitable and broke the seal. The morning sunlight slanted through the window and warmed my back as I read.

Dear Marianne,

I imagine you have already started scampering around the countryside like some farmer’s brat, so I am writing to remind you of the conditions of your visit. You are to learn all you can from the Wyndhams about how to behave like an elegant young lady. Write to me and tell me what you are learning. Consider this an assignment. If I do not recognize some signs of improvement in you I will not hesitate to call you home. If you cannot change your ways, I will not hesitate to cut you off without a penny, just as I did to my nephew. I am committed to this plan, and I will see you become all that you can be, both for your own future happiness as well as for what you owe to the family name. Do not disappoint me.

Sincerely,

Grandmother

I gazed out the window while considering the ramifications of Grandmother’s message. The fact that she had mailed it before I had been absent one week illustrated her lack of faith in me. I had to smile as I admitted to myself that her lack of faith in me was partly justified, for I had not given one moment’s thought to her assignment since I had fallen into the river.

In fact, that event—falling in the river—highlighted the problem perfectly. I did not have the instincts of an elegant lady. But, according to my grandmother, I would have to become an elegant lady in order to win an inheritance.

As I considered this quandary, I did not attempt to deceive myself. Young ladies of elegant birth with no fortune had little hope for comfort in the world. Work was not an option. And marriage without a sizeable dowry . . . well, only the very blessed achieved that. I did not need a mirror before me to know that I was not among the very blessed. My figure was too petite for the current trend in beauty, and my looks, while passable, did not have the striking quality needed to attract a gentleman’s attention.

Besides that, the fact remained that I had no desire to be married simply for the achievement of it. That was Cecily’s ambition, and I had learned at a young age that if I ever wanted the same thing Cecily wanted, I would inevitably lose to her.

It was the doll that had made that point clear to me. When we were six, our great-aunt had sent us a doll she had bought in Paris. She wrote in the letter accompanying the package that it was unique in the whole world. It was finely made, with hazel eyes and real, curled auburn hair.

Having no children of her own, it did not occur to my great-aunt what problems one doll between two girls would present. Cecily and I fought over it the moment it arrived. Of course, we were meant to share it, and sharing may have come later, but we fought over the right to be the first to hold that doll. Since Cecily was the eldest, she claimed that right. It didn’t matter that it was only by seven minutes. Those seven minutes were a lifetime between us and could never be made up.

So she held the doll first. Something fierce and unyielding grew within my young heart as I watched my sister stroke the doll’s pretty auburn hair and hug it to her chest. I despised the feeling of losing to her, and I decided in a moment of jealousy and resentment that I would do anything rather than lose to her again.

So when it was my turn to hold the doll, I claimed that I didn’t want to touch the ugly thing. No matter how much Cecily held and caressed the doll and talked about how pretty it was, I remained stoically insistent that I did not want to touch it. And I never did. Eleven years passed and I never once touched that doll, not even to feel her hair. A maid once put it on my bed by mistake, but even then I did not touch it. I put a handkerchief over my hand and picked up the doll by the foot and flung it onto Cecily’s bed.

At first it was only possessions we fought over. But as we grew older, the list lengthened—talents, beauty, attention from boys. I applied the lesson of the doll and decided it was better to want something different from Cecily instead of lose to her. I learned to hide my desires, or to change them as soon as learning hers.

There was nothing I could do to become more beautiful than she was. But when she excelled at singing, rather than trying to match her, I refused my lessons and turned my focus instead to painting. When she proved herself a devoted flirt, I scorned such artifice and either avoided talking to eligible gentlemen or deliberately spoke my mind to them, which I discovered they did not like.

I had to be different from Cecily so I would not be inferior. We could not occupy the same space together. Like horses in a race, I was tired of jostling for position and losing. I chose a different course so that losing would not be an option.

And so while she planned her season and dreamed of the achievements she would make with her marriage, I did the opposite. She planned to marry someone wealthy, titled, and with a good parcel of land. I dreamed quietly of marrying someone whom I loved deeply, and who loved me madly in return. If such a man could not be found, then I would not marry at all.

Such was my attitude when Cecily and I came of age to be presented to society and enter the marriage mart in London. Cecily dreamed of nothing but town life; I dreamed of nothing but living comfortably in the country. I did not envy Cecily her season, because I had no such ambition. I did not aspire to a brilliant match, because it would be a contest with Cecily and she would win. I never wanted to be an elegant lady, because that was Cecily’s role.

But now, faced with this challenge from Grandmother, I realized I would be foolish to throw away a fortune simply because I had never been ambitious in the same way Cecily was. I might not have planned to be a wealthy heiress, but only a simpleton would turn down an opportunity to live very comfortably for the rest of her life.

In fact, this inheritance was exactly what would give me the freedom to choose whether or not I married for love. And all I had to do to earn it was to prove myself an elegant young lady. I was certainly not entirely hopeless in that regard, or else my grandmother would not have given me a chance to try. I would try, and I would earn the inheritance that would give me unparalleled freedom.

But there was another hope that lived in my heart—the hope that if I proved myself, my father might come home. If he could be proud of me, he might return. I might be able to go home. I might be able to convince him to stay and let me take care of him. With my inheritance from grandmother, we would live comfortably. He would want to keep me there, and he would want to stay with me, and I would never have to wonder again if I was wanted.

At the thought of my father, I remembered where I had seen the look that Philip had given me as I walked out of the dining room. I propped my chin on my hand and remembered the day shortly after my mother’s funeral when I had passed by my father’s study. He had held a framed portrait of my mother in one hand, and his eyes were cast downward as he gazed on her image. He did not see me, and so I caught him in a private moment, where concern for me did not guard his expression. His expression was exactly what I had seen in Philip’s countenance. At the time I had thought it was only a look of grief, but recollecting it now, after seeing it so clearly on Philip’s face, I thought—perhaps—it wasn’t grief I had seen, but longing.

But no. I must have been mistaken, or else he had been thinking of someone else. There was no earthly reason for Philip Wyndham to ever look at me with . . .
longing.
My cheeks suddenly warm, I banished the thought from my mind and turned my attention to responding to Grandmother’s letter.

Dear Grandmother,

I am happy to report that I am getting along very well here. There are plenty of cows, and the farmers have been quite eager to teach me the secrets of milking. With any luck, I shall be proficient at it before I leave so that I may have a trade to fall back on should I fail to meet your expectations.

In the meantime, here is what I have learned so far about being an elegant young lady: An elegant young lady should never insult a gentleman she might have to dine with later. If she feels inclined to twirl, she should watch out for patches of mud. And she should learn how to sing at least one song so that she won’t die of fright if she is called upon to perform.

Give my love to Aunt Amelia.

Yours,

Marianne

I smiled as I imagined what she might make of this letter. It would surely frustrate her, but it would probably also make her laugh. She had a throaty laugh, which was always given up reluctantly—when it was given up at all—and that made it so much more worth the earning. It was something I was proud of—being able to make her laugh, or smile, when she normally repressed such instincts.

In this, Cecily did not share the same talent as I. My twin might outshine me in other accomplishments, but she had never made Grandmother’s gray eyes twinkle with suppressed amusement, and she had certainly never earned a laugh from her. It was not a charitable thought, but one which made my heart swell with pleasure nonetheless.

Despite my flippant response to Grandmother, I did feel the need to focus some of my attention on her assignment. And so, after I sealed the letter to her, I took another piece of paper and made a list. If I were going to improve myself, I needed to be honest about my failings.