A Country Wooing (12 page)

“Shut up, you insufferable gas bag!” she shouted, all elegance forgotten.

Alex looked interested at his brother’s idea, and Rosalie spoke on to settle the matter. “He borrowed it as Lord Penholme, you see, and now Alex is Lord Penholme, so the debt, like the title and estate, devolve upon him. I’m quite sure any solicitor would agree with me,” she said brightly.

Exmore made a sound of disagreeing. “We don’t intend to sue,” he said.

Alex turned to Exmore. “How badly do you need the money?”

“I don’t want to cause you any trouble, Penholme.”

“Bertie!” Rosalie rapped out in a stern voice. “The fact of the matter is, we had hoped to take it back with us this week. Bertie’s uncle usually gives us a couple of thousand every year, and we have come to depend on it, but he is cutting back, as everyone is, and tells us not to expect it this year. We have already spent it. The gas lighting and my new phaeton, and everything so wretchedly dear.”

“Just when I thought I was coming around,” Alex said grimly, but he shouldered this new responsibility. “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll try to raise it somehow within the next few weeks.” He concluded that he must mortgage the London house, much as he disliked to, with all the other mortgages hanging over his head. How could he possibly pay them all? He would have to rent the town house and let the rents pay off the mortgage. He felt as if an ocean of debt were engulfing him, leaving him gasping for air.

“Just how bad is it?” Rosalie asked.

“Very bad,” he said. He went on to outline the financial chaos, and she nodded consideringly. She was not intelligent but had an animal cunning that found a solution before he finished.

“What you must do is come to London and marry yourself an heiress. Don’t sell the London house. Open it up and throw a party.”

“Are you insane? I can’t afford to have the knocker screwed on, let alone staff the place and throw a party.”

“Do it on tick. There aren’t many handsome young earls on the market—a hero, to boot. A pity you sold out, or you could wear your uniform. There’s an excellent crop of heiresses this year. The moneylenders are very considerate toward eligible lords.”

“Don’t be foolish,” he said curtly.

“It is you who are being foolish. How else are you to come around? You’re twenty-seven, Alex. It’s time you were thinking of settling down. You’ve had your little fling, a spot of travel to foreign spots.”

Alex just flickered a glance in Anne’s direction, but Rosalie’s lynx-like eyes saw it. She knew Alex used to be fond of Anne years ago but thought he had gotten over that when he left. Indeed, she always assumed it was Annie’s rejection of his offer that sent him to Spain. No doubt Anne would accept now that Alex was Lord Penholme.

“I think it is a positive duty,” she said piously, and looked around the room for support. “You have the twins and the girls to consider, to say nothing of Robin.”

“He’s giving me Sawburne,” Robin said.

“Giving away estates—my, that doesn’t sound like a poor man!”

“It’s mortgaged,” Robin said.

“And you get the mortgage to go with it, dear?”

“Yes, the mortgage to go with it! Alex had enough to worry about with the shambles Charlie made of everything. I’ll bring Sawburne around myself. I can do it.”

“Charles never could.”

“He might have if you and others like you weren’t so foolish as to go lending him money to toss around as though it were water. I don’t think Alex is legally bound to pay. I bet you couldn’t collect it in a court of law.”

“That’s enough, Rob,” Alex said in a quelling voice. “Exmore lent the money in good faith and will be paid. Let’s have done with this discussion.”

And they were done with it. From a heated argument they soon sailed into a perfectly amiable discussion of plans for coming events: the assembly at Eastleigh, the garden party in the evanescent future. Babe’s inheritance.
By the time dinner was called, there wasn’t a frown on any face, but there were plans a-plenty in every head.

Alex worried over how he would juggle all his bills, Exmore pondered how to proceed without touching Alex for payment at this time, and Anne worried that Alex wasn’t out of the basket yet. Rosalie mistrusted the way Alex directed his attention to Anne Wickfield. There was no counting on him to do the proper thing, but Anne was always a sensible girl. The position must be brought most forcefully to her attention. With this end in view, she chose a place at table beside Anne.

“I was speaking to Cousin Florian the other day, Anne,” she began. “He’s growing into a handsome fellow. Has he been down to Rosedale recently to look over his inheritance? ‘‘

“Not recently. We see him perhaps once a year. Mama has life tenancy, you know.”

“Yes, but it will all be Florian’s one day. How old is he now?”

“He must be eighteen or nineteen.”

“Ah, he looks older. And you are twenty-one now, eh? All grown-up and looking about for a match, I daresay.”

“I’m twenty-two,” Anne replied.

“You still seem like a girl to me, an old married lady with two babes in the nursery. We are all getting on, are we not? After Alex is settled, I daresay you’ll be the next one to marry, Anne. Alex must many money, of course, the way things stand at present.”

Anne stirred in discomfort, hardly knowing what to say. “He must do something to bring his affairs into order,” she agreed.

Rosalie’s handsome eyes narrowed dangerously. “Oh, a good marriage—it is the only solution!”

“There is usually more than one solution to any problem, however complex,” Anne replied, so coldly that Rosalie desisted and complimented Anne on her gold gown, which she had always liked so much, and Anne must be fond of it, too, as she was still wearing it.

After the ladies retired to the gold saloon, the gentlemen remained at their port for longer than usual. Exmore liked his port very well, but eventually the impatient jiggling of Robin got through to him, and they all went along to the saloon.

Alex made a point of leading the group and took up the seat beside Anne before his brother could beat him to it. “What was Rosie saying to get your dander up at dinner?” he asked.

“She has turned matchmaker and is hinting me in Cousin Florian’s direction.”

“Florian? He’s only a child.”

“He’s nearly twenty, and apparently looks older.” A bark of laughter greeted this. “As she is lining up an heiress for you, I agree she might do better than a Bartholomew baby for me.”

“Shall we tell her to butt out, or shall we let her prate on?”

“Till you see your way clear to repaying Exmore, I think the phrase ‘butt out’ had best be suppressed.”

His brow furrowed, and he put a hand to his head in a troubled way to rub it. “I’ll pay them, somehow.”

“It’s a pity she had gas light installed, and got a new phaeton when ...”

“She didn’t know how we were situated here. It’s not Rosalie’s fault,” he said forgivingly. “Exmore was very good about it. He told me not to worry, not to do anything desperate, but of course he must be paid as soon as possible if they need the money.”

“Oh, Alex, how badly can they need it? They look so prosperous.”

“So do we,” he said, and looked around the sumptuous saloon, where fine old furnishings, carpets, and paintings lent an air of opulence. “Who’d ever think to look at this room of people that we can’t raise a penny among us?” His eyes turned to Anne, and his expression softened to a smile. “But really, I don’t mind. I’m even becoming attached to your old gold silk gown. I was wrong and ungallant to suggest it didn’t do you justice.”

“No, Alex, you are ungallant to suggest it
does
do me justice. I would look much better in the white crepe, and one of these years I shall have it. About the time white crepe goes out of style, I expect. They always lower the price then.”

“You look fine to me, Annie,” he said, but his warm eyes said a great deal more.

Something in their attitude, leaning toward each other and smiling, alerted Rosalie to imminent danger. She catapulted herself forward to join them. “I’ve been racking my brain and have come up with the very heiress for you, Alex,” she said brightly while darting suspicious looks from one to the other.

“Have you, Rosie?” he answered playfully. “I appreciate your concern but I think I have come up with an heiress of my own.”

“Who?”

“A local lady. I’ll let you know as soon as things are settled.”

He didn’t look at Anne, nor she at him, but a tension in the air spoke clearly of his meaning.

“But who is she?” Rosalie insisted. “What is her dowry?”

“Her dowry is not great, but she’s an excellent manager.”

“Surely not Miss Peoples! You can’t mean Squire Peoples’s girl, with only ten thousand. Why, a baronet is worth ten thousand. You must not settle for a penny less than twenty-five.”

Alex’s lips moved unsteadily. “It is not Miss Peoples’s ten thousand I have in mind.”

“I am relieved to hear it, for you will need much more than that.”

“Yes, sis, and now that you’ve discovered I am all set, you can get back to Robin and find an heiress for him.”

“That will present no problem. My, how he has blossomed. I bet you Sylvia Mapleton would give her eyeteeth for him. She was crazy about Charlie, and really they are as like as peas in a pod.”

“Why don’t you suggest it to him?” Alex asked.

“I shall, never fear. And I’ll find a man for you, too, Anne.”

“I thought you had settled on a boy for her,” Alex said blandly.

Rosalie laughed, but mirthlessly. “You’ve been telling Alex what I said about Florian. Perhaps he is a little young, but I’ll keep you in mind and see what I can do when I get back to London.”

“You know, if I didn’t owe you so much money, Rosalie, I’d tell you to butt out of our affairs,” Alex said with a perfectly charming smile.

“Would you, Alex?” She smiled back. “But you
do
owe us nearly four thousand pounds, so I’ll just go on butting away.” She leaned back in her chair, determined to do exactly as she said, and with a mutual smile that worried her considerably, Anne and Alex relaxed, too, and let her butt away.

Before leaving, Mrs. Wickfield invited the whole party to tea the next day. There was some discussion as to who was included in the group. Everyone from Babe to Aunt Tannie was invited, but between Alex’s insistence that such a party was too large and Tannie’s suggestion that they take the girls but not the twins and Anne’s complaint that the twins would be in the boughs for weeks if they were left out, nothing was definite.

The hostess fell into that morass of uncertainty that usually results when trying to assemble a party of indeterminate size. “Bring them all” was her parting command, but the echo of Alex’s—”No, no, the children will remain home”—left some doubt. It was of cold ham and desserts the ladies spoke as they drove home in Penholme’s closed carriage, with their own gig following.

More important matters had to wait till later for consideration, when Anne was in bed. Her love for Charles had dwindled over the months since his death. Really, she had loved only a memory for some time now, and learning the truth about him had soured even the memories, but it was of Charles that she thought that night. A charming wastrel who had wasted her youth, along with his family’s fortune. And now it began to look as though his evil lived after him, ruining her chances and Alex’s.

Chapter Ten

The Wickfields were no sooner seated at breakfast the next morning than the cook began sending messages up to them via Mollie Prawne. First they were told that a brace of fowl had been sent down from Penholme, and should she prepare them for tea, as a different menu had been settled on earlier?

“We had better, for likely as not the children will come, and they will like the fowl. Yes, tell Cook to go ahead and prepare the fowl as well as the ham.”

Next it was a basket of fruit from Penholme’s pinery, and what were the plans for it? It, too, was to be prepared and arranged to form an edible centerpiece for the table. When breakfast was finished and the ladies had begun the chore of readying the house for a visit from Londoners, for all this fuss and bother was only to impress the Exmores, a head of cheese and two quarts of cream were delivered. There was a note addressed to Miss Wickfield stuck into the basket, which she opened with some impatience at their benefactor.

It read: “Dear Duck: To save your backhouse boy his forays up the hill, pray tell me if there is anything you require for this afternoon. Your obedient servant. P.”

She smiled and scrawled off a reply on the back of the same paper. “Dear Obedient: We require guests, as many as possible, with large appetites to consume the meal you have sent. A.”

Alex always liked to include the children in any treat, and after reading her note, he issued the order that the children were to be dressed up to attend. Exmore’s carriage and his were required to haul such a number of people. When Rosalie entered the saloon, she immediately began berating Alex for his thoughtlessness.

“Whoever heard of bringing children along to a grown-up party? Aunt Alice, I apologize on behalf of this brutish brother of mine.”

“We’re glad to have them.”

Certainly the children were happy to be there. Nor were they much bother, for it was only afternoon, and they soon ran outdoors to amuse themselves in the sunshine. When they had left, Rosalie looked around to see how the place was holding up. She hadn’t been to visit the Wickfields since Alex’s departure three years before. Nothing had changed. The same carpets, same draperies, not a chair recovered or a new bibelot added to the room. She liked to be always changing and improving her own surroundings.

“Have you seen the lovely new Carlton House tables they are using in London?” she asked. “Really desks, with dozens of little drawers. So sweet. Bertie got me one for my study. One of them would look good in this room, Auntie—just there between the windows.”

“We’re not up to all the new rigs,” Mrs. Wickfield told her. “We have the old Kent table desk in the study that we use for our writing.”

“I remember it, but these new desks are much more elegant. Not great, heavy things like those of Kent.”