An Untitled Lady (4 page)

A servant announced that supper was served. Nash jumped up to help Heywood rise from the chair. “This new girl. Did she collapse as well, or will I see her at supper?”

Deacon waved his hand. “It’s nothing. Just some scarecrow my pater fixed on to set me on the marrying path.”

“Homely, then? Ellspeth shouldn’t mind that.”

“Rather lovely, in fact, in the Saxon way,” Deacon said.

“And she’s a complete stranger?”

“Not exactly.” Nash held the door to let the older man pass. “She’s a Wetherby.”

Heywood stopped cold. “Not the Wetherby chit. I thought your father had forgotten her years ago. The idiocy of the peerage is only overshadowed by the idiocy of the people.”

“You know her?”

“We’ll see soon enough.”

* * * *

“Is that the correspondence?”

Mr. Quinn’s voice, echoing down the receiving room, did not sound ill. His face expressed irritation, perhaps, but not hostility. But Maddie reacted to his question with a lurch in her chest.

“May I have them?” He held out his hand.

She clutched the letters tighter. “Will they be safe?”

“To be sure.” This time, his odd smile did not relieve her.

“These letters are everything to me.”

“I do understand, Miss Wetherby. And we share an aim—we would both see my brother wed and the estate under better management. But if it will put your mind at ease I give you my word: No harm will come to them.”

She willed herself to meet his reach and loosened her fingertips, one by one, to give them over. She knew it wasn’t true, but it felt as if she were giving away the former earl’s friendship into the hands of others who might not treasure it as she did. But that was nonsense. Hadn’t she nearly memorized their contents? And wasn’t friendship in the heart, not on flimsy pages?

When he took them from her she felt a whisper of relief. At last, she wasn’t carrying this weight alone. But when he handed them directly to the butler, she thought she might faint.

“Don’t look so frightened. They’ll be safer in the library. No crumbs.”

She stared at him, startled. A joke? His smile lifted a bit higher on the right than the left. She tried to match it, but her lips were less biddable than her fingers.

He’d met her at the door as she re-entered the reception room. This time, she took in more of the furnishings, as well as the people. Fragile Louis XIV settees fought for purchase on the medieval slate floor, while drapery twice as long as her bed tried to tame the windows, if not the stormy dark beyond. Wax candles on nearly every surface succeeded at holding the night at bay, at least in the lower half of the room.

Two older men in addition to the golden-haired Lord Shaftsbury flanked a petite, ornamented dumpling of good breeding. None wore even the ghost of a smile. This was worse than the interview at the agricultural college.

Mr. Quinn must have sensed her anxiety, for he took her arm to draw her toward the fireplace. The simple gesture somehow calmed her, and her small smile of greeting was genuine.

The lady before her matched her affect. Lady Shaftsbury was blond like her eldest son, and blue-eyed, but the children must have come by their length of limb from their father’s family, for she was as tiny as a second-form girl.

“Miss Wetherby, I am delighted to meet you.” At Maddie’s look of surprise, she continued. “We thought you were dead, didn’t we?”

Maddie could only stare at her. Lord Shaftsbury trilled a laugh, breaking her stupor. She quickly made her curtsey, but her conversation lagged. “Dead?” she managed to croak out.

“George had stopped speaking of you, you know, and he didn’t mention it on his deathbed.”

“But he did speak to you of it.” Did Mr. Quinn’s warm baritone hold a trace of irritation?

“It was so long ago, dear. Deacon was away at school, so at least five years now.”

“And what did he say, Mama?” Lord Shaftsbury sounded almost interested.

“Oh, ‘the young Wetherby’ this, ‘the young Wetherby’ that, that sort of thing.”

“Nothing about this plan?” Mr. Quinn had voiced Maddie’s question aloud.

“He would never share his plans with me. He had his dratted will for that.” Her eyes darkened for a moment, and then she seemed to recover herself. “You’re a lovely thing. Introductions? Here is William Heywood, the oldest friend of our bereaved family. Oldest living, that is. And of course you know your uncle. You must be so eager to reacquaint yourselves.”

If Lord Shaftsbury was a golden child, all blond and blue eyed, Lord Wetherby, was his dark doppelganger, with his Byronic locks and nearly black eyes. And where the earl might be mistaken for a puppy, this man would never stoop to such playfulness. He was not as toweringly tall as she remembered, but the rest was the same. Maddie’s hand went to her throat, touching the gold-bead necklace she always wore. A gift from her father, she had had to have it extended as she grew. Her pulse raced under her skin at the hollow of her neck.

The man nodded gracefully but slightly, his thin lips pursed in the perfect aristocratic bow. Maddie executed a fully proper curtsey. As she sank down, she imagined how a knight must feel kneeling before his liege lord, exposing his neck for praise or death. Her uncle appeared the ultimate gentleman, but her senses were on fire with fear. Why on earth was she being so fanciful?

“Little Maddie. How you’ve grown.”

His mild words shot through her veins like poison.

Heat flooded Maddie’s face, as if all her blood had fled to the top of her head. Just as fast, it was gone, leaving her eyes out of focus and her head too light. She fought for balance, swaying slightly. “Uncle.”

She felt the disapproval of his gaze. Panic nearly overwhelmed her, weighting her legs down with lead. He couldn’t hurt her now, here, could he?

Lady Shaftsbury clapped twice. “Let us go in, now we are all here.” She held her arm to Mr. Heywood.

Lord Shaftsbury took her uncle’s arm, leaving Mr. Quinn to escort her. “You make quite the impression on your little niece.”

“She always was a timid little mouse,” drawled the dark man.

* * * *

Nash had never seen such a deadly reaction to the fop that was Lord Wetherby. By the time they reached the hall, Miss Wetherby could barely stand.

Nash bid her sit in one of the seats for the older footman. “You’re choking your air.”

“What is that?” she choked out.

“Trouble breathing. Lean as forward as you can.” Louder, he said, “Dashed corsets. I don’t know why you women insist on strapping yourselves like sausages.”

He told the nearest footman to fetch a glass of water. Crouching down beside the chair, he took her wrist as if to take her pulse. He knew already from the flush on her face and upper chest it was racing. Instead, he used his thumb to brush the pulse point at her wrist. She jerked back, her gaze flashing to his. But soon enough, the tension in the corners of her mouth eased, and she could sit without swaying. She pulled her hand away with a sniff, a sure sign she was returning to form.

She closed her eyes and took a slow breath. “I apologize, Mr. Quinn. I’m fine, truly. It’s been a long trip, and I’ve thought about—dreamt about—this meeting for so long that when it happened I was overcome. That and the trouble with Lord Shaftsbury. And everything so muddled.”

It sounded plausible, but it was not true. He felt it.

“Miss Wetherby, a mouse?”

She didn’t open her eyes. “I was the one who had to chase the mouse out of the girls’ room at school. But he’s right. I’ve always been frightened of him.”

“Fear doesn’t need to be rational to be real.” He heard his mother’s voice ordering people about in the dining room and frowned. “Perhaps it was the corset.”

She rose carefully. “We mustn’t dally.”

“You don’t need to impress him. Lord Wetherby may be Deacon’s false lieutenant, but he’s not ours.”

“Let us see,” she said, leaning a bit more on his arm than proper.

{ 4 }

Instead of the slightly warmer dining salon, Mama had set this meal in the echo chamber of the banqueting hall. Elaborate place settings for the six of them looked a forlorn hope against the long stretch of the scored oak trestle that their medieval forebears had supped on.

In this setting, the socially preferred even seating looked wrong. Deacon took the head, his back to the open-grated maw of a fireplace. To be proper, Mama should take the opposite end, but as it was six yards away, she wisely chose conversation over propriety. She sat at Deacon’s right, along the length of the trestle, with Wetherby on her right. Heywood had Deacon’s left, with two place settings beside him. Six candelabra illuminated the expanse of empty ebony wood after that.

Nash escorted Miss Wetherby to the seat next to Heywood, and sat himself on the rump seat. Not surprising that he would have to cede his place to the older man, but in a setting so obviously designed to recall the lineage and greatness of the Shaftsburys, even to using the heavy cutlery, it stung. That he would not need to avoid observing Ellspeth Heywood’s moon-eyes at his brother all meal long was small consolation. He sent a silent plea to the gods of hospitality; let it be a short meal, not one of those four-hour monstrosities.

He did feel the blow to Miss Wetherby’s aspirations, though. She should have been seated nearest Deacon; even Ellspeth could have claimed that position. What with the unhappy carriage ride, the shock of arrival, and now this, he nearly felt sorry for her. But she played the role of the martyred lady too coldly for his taste.

Still, her panic in the sitting room felt real enough. He expected that ladies like her did not often face back-to-back set-downs. So often in calm waters, perhaps they did not know how to roll with its swells.

Heywood cleared his throat, startling the servant setting his soup before him. “Now that you are an earl in truth and the King’s law, Shaftsbury, do you show yourself at Lords this year?”

“I think not. You do not, do you, Wetherby?”

“Might be time. With all this hubbub about the country, it might do well to give a speech or two. Get your name in the dailies as a supporter of the crown.”

Nash had never liked Wetherby, but he had to admit the man defined elegant, every bit the gentleman. He’d ridden from Wetherby in that Corinthian cravat and high-pointed green jacket, and took table better than even Mama. Perhaps he resented the man only because he was a second son, made whole by the death of his brother, Miss Wetherby’s father.

On the other hand, Wetherby obviously had not been magnanimous in victory. He hadn’t settled a fair dowry on the lady, as he should have done. Will and testament or no, she was family. Small wonder the lady, so round-eyed and attentive, shuttered her gaze when it passed over her uncle. As the Wetherbys sat directly across from each other, she spent most of the meal looking up the table. Nash most often had a view of the graceful curve of her neck, and a tawny curl that had escaped to dance along its length.

They weren’t through the fish course before talk turned to deeper politics.

Surprisingly, Deacon made the opening salvo. “Mama, Nash has joined a select committee. He’s charged with keeping the peace.”

“Is that safe?” She touched the corner of her mouth in a pantomime of agitation.

Miss Wetherby’s head snapped to face him. Reappraising the merchant? For a moment he warmed himself with pride at his conscription.

“Nothing to worry about.” Heywood’s voice carried that tone used to calm small children. Nash didn’t know how Mama could stand it. “We don’t do the battling, only send the troops out. If need be, of course.”

Miss Wetherby’s steady brows pinched in the tiniest bit. “Manchester has so many criminals you must call out an army?”

His pride sank to his shoes.

Wetherby answered his niece. “It’s the lower orders. They seek to break machines and steal from better men than they.”

Heywood held up a hand. “Too strong.”

“Is it? Looks like a return of the risings of Seventeen.”

“Which were put down quickly. And only the guilty workers were put down,” Heywood soothed Mama.

Put to death, he meant. The bite of turbot lay like ashes in Nash’s mouth. He swallowed it down. “I heard it was spies for the crown that started the tinder.”

“Whyever would they?” Deacon’s brow knitted.

“To earn their keep,” Nash bit out. “No revolt, no pay for spies.” He’d known some spies in the Navy, nasty buggers.

“But it isn’t spies inciting these blighted meetings spreading across Lancashire.” Heywood pointed his fork at Nash. “Ten thousand at the one in Manchester this past winter alone.”

“I observed that meeting, and while the words were strong, the people didn’t appear violent,” Nash said.

“Perhaps the spies were away that day?” Wetherby’s baiting skills needed work, though they made Deacon smile.

Deacon looked to Heywood. “But still you formed a committee? Sidmouth must be quaking.”

“Trumped-up aristo.” Wetherby dismissed the chief of the country’s Home Office with a flick of his twice-ruffled wrist.

Deacon signaled for the next course. “I for one don’t wish any trouble. The last thing I need is my tenants up in arms. As Nash is forever reminding me, I am responsible for them.
Noblesse oblige
, and all.”

“Nonsense.” Wetherby straightened his cuff. “
Noblesse, c’est toute
.”

Mama clapped twice in appreciation of his witticism, but her smile did not reach her eyes. As her gazed traveled the circuit from Wetherby, Deacon, Heywood, Miss Wetherby, to him, her expression clouded.

“I must admit, I did not arrange this supper, nor was I consulted on the guest listing. Shaftsbury drew it up himself, and Perkins did the favors. I cannot fathom why we all are drawn together tonight.”

“It’s for me, isn’t it, Mama?”

“Of course, Deacon dear. But Mr. Heywood, while a very old family friend, has no special connection to you. He’s been closer to Nash these past years.” She pursed her lips, looking at Wetherby.

That man tittered, an oddly feminine sound in this room of solid timbers and armaments. “Too true. Your husband, rest his soul, did not invite me to ordinary events. Why should I be here now?” He was so magnanimous she patted his hand in praise.

Mama continued down the table. “And you, Miss Wetherby?”

Nash felt the lady stiffen, her hands quickly dropping below the table to twist at her napkin. She must have looked to Deacon, for Mama flicked her gaze in that direction, mouth thinning in calculation.

“Miss Wetherby has aspirations to join the family, Mama. Sadly, father neglected to inform us of that fact.”

Everyone at table and standing around it turned to stare at the lady. She looked into her lap. Then snapped her head up, resting her gaze on Mama.

“Impossible,” Wetherby declared.

Mama only sighed. “I wouldn’t put it past him. Poor George.”

Nash felt compelled to correct their impressions. “She has letters from father, Mama. Letters that reach back a decade or more.”

“I don’t doubt it. The man took an unhealthy interest in you from the start. Apparently, he always wanted a girl. Obstinate creature.”

Wetherby finally cast a glance at his niece. “Why ever would a peer choose to correspond with you? You’re nothing to him. Less than nothing.”

She opened her lips, but no sound emerged. She closed them again, swallowing hard, her hand reaching for her throat protectively. “He called himself my godfather.”

“So he was.” Mama turned to Wetherby. “A quiet affair, at the chapel at Wetherby. She was a bit older than she should have been, or bigger at least.”

Miss Wetherby’s voice was stronger now. “The earl—the previous earl—arranged for my schooling. After my parents’ deaths. His influence helped turn me out as a lady.”

“What do you know of being a lady?” Wetherby’s anger took Nash by surprise, but did not rattle Miss Wetherby.

“I was born one, and raised one. And nearly always act as one.”

“Hear, hear.” Deacon raised his glass to her.

Wetherby scowled. “Don’t encourage her.”

Her gasp knifed Nash’s ears. He couldn’t let that pass. He’d had well enough of Wetherby.

“What do you mean by that?” His protest drew all eyes to him: Mama’s confused, Deacon’s amused, Wetherby’s infuriated, and the lady’s prepared for more pain.

Wetherby shrugged and turned his attention back to Mama.

Deacon tried to smooth things over. “Not just family. It seems she’s to be my wife.” He tossed the word out lightly, as if marriage were the biggest joke in the world.

Wetherby burst out laughing, the sound ringing to the candles above their heads. “A marvelous joke. Did your brother set it up?”

“My first thought, too. But no, it was my dear papa’s doing.”

Wetherby sat up straight, choking off his laugh. He stared at Miss Wetherby a long moment, and then turned away in dismissal. “She does her family proud.”

Mama set her glass on the table with an audible clink. “Lord Wetherby, I must protest. How could you say such a thing of your brother’s child?”

“She isn’t my brother’s child.”

Miss Wetherby’s hand went to her throat again.

A clink of silver on plate reminded them that theirs weren’t the only ears listening in the room. No one spoke until the young rabbit had been served, and Mama sent the staff from the room.

“A by-blow?” Deacon’s eyes lit up, as if the circumstances of her birth were the only thing that could interest him about Madeline Wetherby.

“Worse. The daughter of no one.”

“Explain, if you please.” Mama tapped her mouth with her napkin, and then rested her hands in her lap, as if to give a lecture—or receive one.

Wetherby obliged. “As you know, Lady Shaftsbury, my brother’s wife refused to whelp him the requisite pups.”

“She didn’t refuse, she miscarried. And speak of the dead with more reverence, if you please.”

“Beg your pardon, ma’am,” Wetherby drawled. He looked pleased that he had their undivided attention, and spoke loud enough that those servants listening behind the doors could easily make him out. “The lady finally did bring a child out into the world, but sadly he did not last a week. Shortly after, while riding back from town, the family carriage ran over a farmer’s daughter. Those sort like to walk in the roads as if they own them, you know.” He shrugged.

“This woman died on the spot, but the babe in her arms was tossed free, and unharmed, they say. My lady sister-in-law took that child as hers. This Madeline.”

“That poor Lady Wetherby. To keep such a secret.”

“What about the babe’s other family?” Deacon leaned forward, rapt.

“My brother paid them handsomely. I’m sure they didn’t miss her.”

Nash was sure they did, and their mother more.

Deacon’s eyes flashed with his mind’s humming. “So they adopted the girl, and then had a boy of their own. Isn’t that always what happens?”

“Exactly.
Nihil et nemo
.” Nothing, no one.

Madeline Wetherby lurched to her feet, swaying. The four men at table scrambled to their own feet. Nash had no doubt all were wondering the same thing: Does one stand when a lady does if she’s suddenly no longer a lady?

Mama rapped her knuckles on the table. “Sit down at once. Don’t you dare faint; it’s been done already once today.” The girl sat down, her breath escaping in a gust, like a sail pulled too fast on the line.

Nash didn’t like the looks the others were giving her.

“She is still a Wetherby.” He wished he could stretch his arms across the table and slap some sense into Wetherby’s too-fine façade.

“Not by blood.”

Mama’s hand fluttered over her chest. It was her reaction Nash feared the most, he realized.

“This changes nothing,” he said, rather too forcefully.

“I don’t know, dearest. What could Shaftsbury have been thinking?”

He had to wonder the same thing. His father had been a stickler for “pure blood,” critical of any news of a dilution of the peerage. Or was he? “I suppose that is why he felt responsible for her.”

“He needn’t.” Wetherby sliced a bite of the tender rabbit and ate it. “Her kind always lands on its feet. Look how high she’s risen.”

“Take care, Lord Wetherby. My father was in trade as well.”

Both her sons turned to their mother in shock. Deacon recovered first. “So the old codger did have something of the democrat in him.”

Miss Wetherby held her hands in her lap as if squeezing coal to make a diamond. “I don’t believe you,” she said, looking directly at her uncle. If he was her uncle.

“Careful what you say, girl. Accusing a peer of lying is a transportable offense.”

Heywood seemed to rouse himself at last. “Now, now, we’re all friends here.” He drew his hand down the length of his beard, a sure sign of nerves. “In fact, I now know why I was invited tonight.”

Deacon’s eyebrows arched. “I hardly know if I can stomach another surprise.”