Miss Dower's Paragon (3 page)

Mrs. Dower turned with a hopeful expression to her daughter. She asked hesitantly, “How did it go, Evelyn dearest? Am—am I to congratulate you?”

“Pray do not be such a pea-goose, Mama. Of course I did not accept Mr. Hawkins suit,” said Evelyn, more sharply than she had intended.

At the hurt in her mother’s eyes, she relented. “I am sorry, Mama. I am in a beastly mood and all due to that mawkworm.”

“Mawkworm! I would never describe young Peter Hawkins in such terms. Why, he is quite the handsomest gentleman in the neighborhood,” said Mrs. Dower in liveliest surprise.

Evelyn shrugged her shoulders in scorn of such a frivolous assessment. “I do not know how else one would describe a gentleman who allows his grandmother to approve his bride! No, Mama, I have not the least feeling or respect for Mr. Peter Hawkins, and so I let him know.”

“Did you, my dear?” asked Mrs. Dower doubtfully. “The gentleman did not appear in the least put out of curl, as one might have expected if he had been so abused. And he did say that he would call again.”

“Mr. Hawkins is merely all that is polite,” said Evelyn dismissively.

“Really, Evelyn. I am not used to such pertness in you. One would think you had a score of suitors, all as good or better than Peter Hawkins.”

“Perhaps I shall have, Mama.” Evelyn tilted up her chin in an unconsciously challenging pose. “Why not, indeed? I am considered to be passing fair and I am possessed of a respectable dowry. Why should I not attract a few eligible offers once I am out in society?” She curled her lip, casting a glance in the direction that had been taken by Mr. Hawkins. Under her breath, she muttered, “And offers that are not urged by the gentleman’s grandmothers, either.”

“You are in a rare mood and no mistake. However, I shall not say another word on that head as I suspect that it would be of not the least use to do so! How like your father you have become, and not once did I ever suspect it!”

Mrs. Dower sighed, but her next thought brightened her eyes at once. “Though I must say, I am happy to hear you say that you wish to be brought out. I had not thought you cared overmuch for the notion before but perhaps now it will be just the thing. Oh, I am persuaded it will be. Bath is not London, of course, but it is a fair society nonetheless.”

Mrs. Dower sat down on the bench, already beginning to enumerate the pleasures in store for a young lady embarking upon her first Season. She was soon quite happily resigned to the disappointment of the day, especially as she tucked away into her memory the promise made by Mr. Hawkins that he would call again. Perhaps once her daughter was exposed to other gentlemen she would come to see just what a pearl Mr. Hawkins was among his peers.

Evelyn could not quite enter into her mother’s plans for her. There was something about the interview with Mr. Hawkins that left her disquieted.

She had hoped to convey her displeasure and contempt for his proposal through an exaggerated hauteur that was in reality foreign to her nature. Indeed, she had intended to offend him so greatly that he would be so emboldened as to refuse to comply with his grandmother’s wishes and abandon any further pursuit of her hand.

However, she had the distinct feeling that she had missed an important nuance and that she had not come off from the meeting in quite the way she had wished. Nor, she suspected, had she conveyed to Mr. Hawkins her absolute and irrevocable rejection of his unflattering suit.

Chapter Three

Miss Dower’s suspicions were correct.

On any other gentleman, her concerted effort to convey her displeasure and contempt would have served remarkably well. Any other gentleman would have realized his humiliation and mistake, and gone away with such a disgust of her that all notion of a suit was abandoned.

However, as Mr. Hawkins returned home, it was not disgust or humiliated anger that he felt.

Contrary to what Miss Dower had hoped, Mr. Hawkins was not at all affronted by the Turkish treatment he had received at her dainty hands. In fact, if anyone had expressed the opinion that he had been ill-used by the lovely lady, Mr. Hawkins would have been amazed.

He had had little experience with young ladies. He assumed that Miss Dower had behaved with quite proper reserve and diffidence upon receiving his declaration.

He did not dwell, therefore, on the manner in which Miss Dower had received him, but rather her rejection. He was deeply disappointed, naturally, but his disappointment did not encompass any sharper feeling of resigned discouragement such as might have been felt by a less-infatuated gentleman.

Instead, he gave a mental shrug and wondered how best to make an impression upon Miss Dower’s as-yet untouched heart. Her desire to become comfortable in society before entertaining any suit was certainly not unreasonable, he thought. A lady had to have a certain amount of self-assuredness in order to play hostess to a new husband, and to carry it off well she needed first to learn how to deal with society.

He did not begrudge Miss Dower that experience; but rather, he approved of her farsightedness. Miss Dower was sensible and intelligent, both of which were qualities that he valued.

Yet he had the disquieting notion that he was about to enter the lists in order to win his lady, and for that he felt the slightest sense of anxiety.

Mr. Peter Hawkins was still deep in thought when he returned home and gave over his hat to the butler. He picked up the few missives on the tray in the hall and flipped through them. One commanded his attention, pulling him out of his preoccupation, and he immediately broke open its seal. As he read its contents, a smile touched his lips.

His pleasant reflections were cut short when the butler informed him that Lady Pomerancy awaited him in her private salon.

Sighing, Mr. Hawkins nodded his acknowledgement and mounted the stairs. He would have preferred to have put off the visit with his grandmother after returning from his unlucky errand, but he knew that it was best to humor her ladyship.

He knocked on the door to his grandmother’s apartments, and at a command to enter, he opened it.

“Peter, my dear boy!”

Lady Pomerancy peremptorily dismissed her maid. She was seated in her wheelchair so that the light from the window was cast behind her, leaving her sharp features partially in shadow.

“Grandmama.” Mr. Hawkins advanced to catch hold of Lady Pomerancy’s hands. Lady Pomerancy suffered to have her cheek kissed.

As he had anticipated, however, her ladyship’s greeting was impatient. “Well, my dear?”

Lady Pomerancy indicated that he was to sit in the wing chair beside her.

Mr. Hawkins settled into the chair assigned to him. He knew quite well the subject of her abrupt query, and briefly, without elaboration, he said, “Miss Dower declined my suit.”

Lady Pomerancy stared at her grandson for a long moment. Then she snapped, “What ails the girl? Is she simple?”

“On the contrary. Miss Dower is highly intelligent,” said Mr. Hawkins.

“Then what is this nonsense about refusing your offer?”

“Miss Dower indicated a wish to be entered into society before she bound herself to any particular suitor. She felt that to go about in society would grant her a wider experience upon which to ground her decision,” said Mr. Hawkins.

“Errant nonsense!”

Mr. Hawkins brushed a nonexistent speck of lint from his coat sleeve. “I thought the lady’s reasoning quite sound.”

“Do you indeed!” Lady Pomerancy said irascibly. “The girl sounds a perfect nodcock to me. Indeed, if she is anything at all like the mother, she undoubtedly has more hair than wit. She could not do better than to accept an offer from you.”

Mr. Hawkins smiled at that. He regarded his grandmother with fondness, saying gently, “You are biased, ma’am. Admit it. You grudge me nothing in this world, and it annoys you when others do not do the same.”

After a moment, Lady Pomerancy’s fierce expression reluctantly lightened. She reached over a gnarled hand and briefly caught his fingers. “Aye, you are the light of my life. Of course I wish you to possess all that you desire.” She let go of his hand and pounded the arm of her chair. “Drat the girl! Does she not realize that you are besotted with her?”

Mr. Hawkins was fairly certain that Miss Dower did indeed lack that perception. He said slowly, “I do not think the fact has any bearing at all on the matter. It is more a question of where Miss Dower’s sensibilities may or may not lie.”

Lady Pomerancy snorted. “Pah! What has that to say to anything! In my day, a young girl’s future was arranged for her by her family and she was properly grateful to have it to be so. There was none of this misguided emphasis placed upon love matches that we see in these days.”

Mr. Hawkins knew better than to remind his grandmother that her daughter, the lady who had been his mother, had been just so fortunate to have enjoyed such a love match. “I bow to your superior wisdom, ma’am.”

Quick to catch his neutral tone, Lady Pomerancy regarded her grandson with a shade of suspicion. She smiled suddenly. “You are discretion itself, my dear. I know quite well what you are thinking, never assume that I do not. You are thinking of your own mother.”

Mr. Hawkins bowed from the waist. A smile lurked in his eyes as he said, “I am an open book to you, I perceive.”

“Oh, aye, as though I have not learned through the years to allow you the privacy of your thoughts.” Lady Pomerancy snorted in derision.

Mr. Hawkins raised his brows in query. “I hope that I am not so rag-mannered as to refuse any reasonable question from yourself, my lady.”

“Oh, you are never rag-mannered, my dear! I would not have borne that, you may be sure,” said Lady Pomerancy, a glint in her eyes. “Only, there comes a certain expression into your eyes that warns off any intrusion. Even as a boy, you regarded any attempt to extract your reasonings as a violation, to be endured but resisted with a stubborn reserve that upon occasion I found to be most annoying.”

Her ladyship’s scowl was so ferocious that Mr. Hawkins laughed outright. “I see that I was a positive trial to you, ma’am.”

“Aye, and you still are,” retorted Lady Pomerancy, trying unsuccessfully to maintain her severity. Her voice softened. “The day you came to my care, I had little inkling then of the troubles that would thereafter beset me. Childish diseases and scraped knees and positive agonies of suspense until you had mastered the Latin verbs. Once you had the Latin, and the Greek, I breathed freer. I knew then that you had the proper turn of mind to match your physical prowess and that you had the potential to become the perfect gentleman.”

Mr. Hawkins’s mouth quirked in a lopsided smile as he regarded his grandmother. “I fear that I do not yet meet up to your high expectations for me, my lady.”

“On the contrary. You have met and surpassed all my expectations for you, Peter. The years of tutors and fencing and dancing masters were a sound investment. The education at Oxford that you received deepened an already well-informed understanding, while the grand tour which you undertook smoothed the last rough edges of your character to a pleasing, yet sober, patina of sophistication.” Lady Pomerancy gave a sharp nod. “Indeed, I could not be more pleased with you, Peter.”

Mr. Hawkins was overcome. These were high accolades indeed from the stem lady who had been the guiding force of his formative years. He reached over to lift his grandmother’s misshapen fingers to his lips in grateful salute. Quietly he said, “I know full well that I could not have had a better guardian than yourself, ma’am. It was not an easy task to take on the upbringing and education of a five-year-old boy.”

Lady Pomerancy shrugged. “I saw my duty, however. Was I to leave my orphaned grandson to the casual offices of my brother, Horace? That wastrel, that womanizer! Why, if you had not died of neglect first, you would have attained manhood with just as little notion of propriety and moral fortitude as that gentleman holds. No, I would not have it, even though Horace offered to take you on. Horace felt obligated, of course, since your father had been his heir.”

Her ladyship reflected for a short moment. “I must give him credit for that much, I suppose, though I don’t doubt he would have regretted it within the hour. He was always one to speak first and to think last.”

Mr. Hawkins smiled at this sharp analysis of his great-uncle, who was an extremely selfish gentleman beneath a bluff and good-natured exterior. “No, I would not have fared half so well at the viscount’s hands,” he agreed soberly.

“No. Nor would you have flourished in Lord Waithe’s household,” said Lady Pomerancy. She said loftily, “I do not dislike my son-in-law. However, it has been my regret for these several years that his lordship lacks a certain quality that I deem essential in the well-rounded gentleman.”

Since Lady Pomerancy’s irascible opinion regarding the Earl of Nottingbook’s limited intelligence had been openly and often expressed, Mr. Hawkins had little difficulty in interpreting her ladyship’s meaning. However, Lady Pomerancy’s reference did recall to him the short note that he had received. “By the by, I have had word from Percy. He wishes to come down from London to visit with us. I trust that will not put you out, my lady?”

“You must have whomever you wish, Peter. By all means, let Percy rusticate with us,” said Lady Pomerancy cordially. “However, pray do not expect me to bestow a perpetual smile or nod on your cousin’s rattle-pated prattle. He is as cloth-headed as his father and sports-mad, as well. I shall not pretend to you, or to that nodcock for that matter, that I enjoy constant babblings about this race or that.”

“Percy mentioned nothing about a race, ma’am, so you may rest easy,” said Mr. Hawkins soothingly.

However, there was such a pronounced twinkle in his eyes that it made Lady Pomerancy slant a shrewd glance at him. “Then it is hunting or fisticuffs that brings him, for I am certain that it is not my company that he seeks out.”

“You are perfectly right on all counts, ma’am, as always,” said Mr. Hawkins politely.

“Aye, I do not doubt it in the least,” retorted Lady Pomerancy. “The pair of you share at least one quality, my dear. Percy also is the politest of creatures when it suits him.”