Heir to Rowanlea (8 page)

“And Lord Pauling seems to be in some difficulty, if he is selling his horses and going away,” she added consolingly.

“Richard knows a great deal too much!” he snapped. “I noticed he danced twice with you and took you down to supper last night. Is he growing particular in his attentions?”

Charlotte stared in surprise.

“He’s one of your best friends,” she exclaimed. “I’ve known him for years. He is just being friendly, as he always has been, and I think it ill done of you to be spiteful. How many times I dance with him or anyone else is my business, not yours. You are merely piqued because you danced only once with Elizabeth and jealous Jack took her down to supper!”

“And what’s all this Jack tells me about taking you with him in our race? It’s not done, and no respectable female would agree to it.”

“Has Elizabeth refused to ride with you, then?”

“That, Miss, is none of your business.”

They continued the ride in a silence which remained unbroken until they had almost reached home. Charlotte was concerned, both to discover whether Harry would ask anyone else to drive with him, and if so who, or whether he would convince Jack to abandon her. As they entered the Square they saw outside Norville House a huge traveling carriage which was being unloaded of innumerable boxes and trunks, and they forgot everything else.

“What the devil?” Harry exclaimed. “I did not know anyone was coming to stay, did you?”

All animosity forgotten, Charlotte shook her head.

“No one is expected, or mama would have told me,” she replied. “Who in the world can it be? Jack’s mother is the only one I could imagine coming without letting us know, and she would never travel with so much baggage. There’s enough there for a household!”

“Come on,” he urged, and they skirted the garden to halt behind the coach.

Harry’s groom, recovered from the assault by James, apart from some bruising round his eyes, was standing with the coachman. He saw them and ran across to take the horses, and without waiting for Harry to help her Charlotte slipped from the saddle.

“Who is it, Pritchard?” Harry asked in a low voice, but the groom shook his head in bewilderment.

“I ‘eard as it were Lord Claude, ‘ooever ‘e is,” he replied, and Harry, looking puzzled, nodded and followed Charlotte up the steps and into the hall.

This was littered with luggage, and a somewhat bewildered looking Rivers was endeavoring to restore order from the chaos while having his efforts considerably hindered by a voluble small lady. She, attired in an elegant pale blue pelisse and matching bonnet that caused Charlotte to gasp in admiration, was standing in the midst of the disorder and insisting in a shrill voice, heavily accented, that nothing more must be done until the portmanteau containing her jewels had been discovered.

Charlotte halted in surprise, Harry just behind her, as they took in the sight of a girl who looked like a maid, and a small man, clearly a valet, searching through the baggage and spreading it around the hall even further. Their startled gaze took in the fact that Lady Weare, almost as dazed as they were themselves, stood in the doorway of the small saloon to the right of the front door, and a tall, florid gentleman dressed in a traveling cloak stood behind her. As they looked, this gentleman turned and spoke to someone in the room behind him, then bent to say something to Lady Weare, but what it was Charlotte could not tell for the confused noise in the hall.

Then Lady Weare saw them, and a look of mingled relief and apprehension crossed her face. She started towards them.

“Charlotte! Harry! How fortunate you have returned, for I’m afraid Henry has gone out. Come, my dears, in here. Ah, Claudine, you have it, so now you can leave everything to the servants and come and sit down.”

She shepherded them into the room and firmly closed the door, though privately Charlotte thought the servants were so confused they would not have been able to understand anything they might have overheard. Standing by the mantlepiece was a slender young man, his height accentuated by the cloak which was hanging from his shoulders and thrown open to reveal a dark green, tightly fitting coat, pale biscuit-colored buckskins, and a somewhat vividly colored floral patterned waistcoat. His cravat was tied in the fashionable waterfall, and a large diamond pin gleamed from within its folds. One elegantly shod foot rested negligently on the firedogs, and he was swinging a gold-handled quizzing glass slowly back and forth at the end of a delicate length of gold chain. He surveyed Charlotte and Harry with a hint of mockery in his eyes as they looked, puzzled, at him.

Lady Weare took a deep breath and turned to Charlotte and Harry.

“Such a surprise! A delightful, unexpected surprise. Here are my daughter Charlotte, and nephew Harry. Of course you knew them before, but it is so many years ago, and they have all grown so much in that time! This, my dears, is your Aunt Claudine, Lady Norville, and Claude, the cousin we feared might be dead. And Monsieur de Vauban, your aunt’s brother, who has accompanied them from France. I scarcely recognized you, Claudine, let alone Claude!”

Chapter 5

Having thus given them time to master their surprise, she smiled brightly at them, and Charlotte, responsive to the unspoken plea in her glance, dutifully dropped a curtsey, wondering whether she ought to offer to kiss her aunt. Before she could decide Lady Norville beamed delightedly at her, and approached to sweep her into her arms, bestowing several kisses on Charlotte’s unresponsive cheeks.

“The dear little Charlotte! How well I recall you as a child. Such a mischievous one, at that, but so much the young lady now. So elegant. I shall have to tell you some of the secrets we have in France, so that you can dazzle the young bucks. And your big cousin Harry. My, how he has grown. I believe he is taller even than Claude!”

She released Charlotte and went to embrace Harry, but he forestalled her by grasping her hand and raising it to his lips.

“Welcome, Aunt Claudine,” he said with an effort, and then, unable to control himself any longer, burst out: “Claude? What is this? My cousin’s name is Frederick!”

“Frederick Claude, named after his dear father and me. Don’t you recall? But Frederick is so ugly a name, and so difficile for us to pronounce, and in France, you know, these last years, it has not been wise to puff off English connections, so my boy is called Claude.”

Harry stared at her for an instant, frowning, before he spoke.

“The head of the family has been called Frederick for several generations,” he said quietly, and turned at last to shake the limp hand his cousin extended to him. “It’s good to see you back, Claude. My father sent a man to France a short while ago to try and trace you. It has been a long time.”

“And there must be so much to tell,” Lady Weare put in. “I am still so startled I cannot think straight. But Claudine, you will wish to go to your room. I will take you up. Let us hope the servants have taken up some of the baggage, and your maid can find you a gown to change into. Harry, will you show Claude to his room? I have ordered the oak guest chamber to be prepared for him and the one next to it for Monsieur. I hope that will be comfortable for you, Claude. “

“We were so pleasantly surprised to find the house lived in,” Lady Norville said, smiling at her sister-in-law. “I dreaded having to put up at an hotel while Claude saw his man of business, and sent for Henry, and we had this house made habitable. How well I recall it. But it seems very old-fashioned now. No doubt Claude will want to redecorate and throw out this dreadful old furniture. And pray do not disturb yourselves by moving out of the main bedrooms, the others will do admirably for us for the time being.”

It’s a wonder she doesn’t ask us all to move from our bedrooms immediately, Charlotte thought. She cast a swift glance at Harry, whose face was set and his lips clamped together as though he were restraining himself from comment. She could see life with the newly returned Norvilles was going to be tricky, if not downright unpleasant.

“My brother wished to keep the house in good order, while not altering it beyond recognition,” Lady Weare said calmly. “You will find he has had all the necessary repairs done, though he would not permit me to indulge my love of redecorating,” she finished with a rather forced laugh.

“Rowanlea is entirely as it was left also,” Harry put in, his voice cold with suppressed anger. “My father has kept only a skeleton staff there, but has exercised his duties as trustee from Rowanlea Manor. The servants here are in fact his own, and naturally paid for by him.”

Lady Norville beamed at him and attempted to pat his hand, but Harry moved away.

“I am sure he has done everything proper, not simply his duty. I do not mean to criticize, my dear boy! I know how much Claude will rely on him to teach him what, after all, he should have been learning these last years, had things turned out differently. And as for you, Sophia, I shall depend on you to show me how to go on in London society, and introduce me to all the people I ought to know, and the ones I have most like forgot!”

She swept out of the room and Lady Weare followed. After a moment Harry asked the men if they too would wish to go to their rooms. Charlotte was left alone, thinking of the blow this would be to Harry’s hopes of winning Elizabeth, and determined she would, in some manner which as yet was unclear to her, persuade Elizabeth to accept him.

* * * *

After seeing to the comfort of the new arrivals, Charlotte, Harry and Lady Weare gravitated by a natural instinct to the latter’s boudoir.

“Claude!” Harry exploded as he came into the room. “It shows how much he cares for the family to abandon his own name. I’d never have thought it of him. And that frightful waistcoat. How could any self-respecting man wear such a monstrosity? The fellow’s a dandy!”

Lady Weare sighed. “It was not tactful to change his name, and yet, I suppose, there is something in what Claudine says. They would not have wished it known they were connected with England while we were at war with France.”

“Well, they have made it plain they intend to be fully connected now,” he replied savagely. “How dare they chide my father for the fact that this place is old-fashioned! It was so for years before he took over, and they would have had cause to blame him if he had spent Claude’s blunt in refurbishing it! It would certainly not have been to their taste if he had. And to talk of sending for him, as though he were a lackey at their command. It’s the outside of enough!”

“That is just Claudine’s way, Harry. And I do not think the comment about the house was intended as a criticism, dear,” his aunt said pacifically, but it did not mollify him.

“Do not move out of the best bedrooms,” he mimicked. “Where would she have had us sleep, pray? In the servants’ attics? I collect we should have had the best beds aired, and hot water awaiting them, in the best bedrooms, these past nine years! I wonder why did they not send to tell us of their arrival? Did they wish to catch us out?”

“Claudine did not intend any insult, Harry. She was always prone to speak without reflection. Really, it is amazing how little she has changed, despite being ten years older.”

Seeing from Harry’s stormy look that he would not be distracted from his grievances, Charlotte hastened to join in.

“I can scarcely remember her, for whenever we stayed at Rowanlea I contrived to avoid her if possible, since she was for ever demanding to see if my hands were dirty, or my dresses torn. Claude I can recall much better, but he seems changed somehow.”

“His hair is perhaps a shade darker, to be sure,” her mother agreed, “but boys often do change as they grow older, and it is hard to remember exact shades of color after all these years. He seemed, from what little I saw of him, older than I would have expected. “

“He was twenty-one in January, was he not?” Charlotte asked. “Yes, in fact he looked older than you, Harry.”

Harry looked at her broodingly, and then an arrested expression came into his eyes.

“You are right,” he said slowly. “And, by heavens, where was the scar by his lip? Do you not remember, Aunt Sophia, it was just by the corner?”

“Yes, I do,” Charlotte exclaimed. “He cut himself when he fell out of the oak tree behind the stables. We were frantic, for we thought the bleeding would never stop, and it left a scar about half an inch long!”

“I wonder?” said Harry musingly. “No, it is not possible. Yet could he be an imposter? There have been such things.”

Lady Weare looked at Harry, startled for a moment, and then shook her head decidedly.

“Nonsense, Harry. The scar could have faded over the years. Why, I had a similar one, on my arm, when I was very young, and it was the despair of my mama, who thought I would never be able to wear low dresses, but it had disappeared by the time of my come-out.”

“But he does look older than Harry,” Charlotte repeated.

Lady Weare shook her head.

“He has gone through a great deal, I imagine, and not had an easy life. That is easily accounted for, it can age people. No, Fred—Claude, I suppose we must become used to calling him—was always very like his mother, and he still is, resembling her more than his father. He is no impostor, Harry, and you must not even think of the possibility again.”

They were silent for a few moments, and then Lady Weare sighed, and remarked they would all find things very different now.

“I wonder how soon he will go to Rowanlea?” she asked, unable to keep a faint note of hope from her voice.

“Rowanlea? Well, at least it will be lived in again, though doubtless my father will be at fault for not residing there instead of in his own home,” Harry said bitterly, and took his leave.

* * * *

He made his way to Jack’s lodgings, where he poured out all his anger against his cousin’s behavior, and the implied criticisms of his father.

“I shall not be able to remain in Grosvenor Square without coming to cuffs with him,” he concluded.

“Come and share these rooms,” Jack offered hospitably. Harry grinned at him but shook his head.

“Thanks, Jack, but there’s no need. I still keep the rooms I use when I come up to town on my own, to save having to open the house, and I think I shall move there. God, what a mess! Odd, I used to like Frederick, he was a great gun, up for all sort of larks, but he has changed. That detestable mother of his, I suppose, and I never did like her. I do not think I am going to like Claude!”