Miss Truelove Beckons (Classic Regency Romances Book 12) (6 page)

“La, I never go near the library!” Miss Swinley laughed, gaily, laying one bare white hand daringly over his, where it rested on the Irish lace tablecloth. “Mama says that too much reading leads to brain fevers!”

“You seem not at all at risk of that disease,” Drake said, stifling his impatience.

That remark earned him a look of reproof from his mother.

“Were you not thinking of going to Thorne House to check on the progress of your renovation, my dear?” she said.

“I was,” Drake replied. “I might go tomorrow. It appears that the weather will hold for at least a day or two more, and I want to check in with Stanley before too long; I have some new plans I want him to consider. And I want to see how far he and the other fellows have gotten.”

“Tomorrow sounds like an ideal day,” Lady Leathorne said. She glanced brightly around the table and said, as if it had just occurred to her, “Why do you young people, the four of you, not make a day of it? Take a picnic lunch and dine there. You could see the estate and still be back before dark. It is not above twenty-five or thirty miles.”

“I would love that above all things, Lady Leathorne,” Miss Swinley said, her pretty face glowing in the candlelight. She turned to her mother. “May I, Mama?”

“Certainly, my dear. I long for a comfortable coze with Jessica,” Lady Swinley said, casting a glance at her old friend with a delighted expression on her narrow face. “Just be sure to carry a parasol for your delicate complexion and stay out of the wind.”

“It is settled then, if Lord Conroy does not object?” Lady Leathorne nodded toward the gentleman in question.

“I think it a marvelous plan!” he said, with a genial smile on his attractive face.

Drake’s head whirled. From a comfortable day on his own, riding to and exploring his own estate, it had become a pleasure party for Miss Swinley. And they had included but had not asked Miss Becket! Whether she was a paid companion or not, she still deserved a say in the affair. He turned and looked down the table, and pointedly said, “Miss Becket, an outing tomorrow to my estate has been proposed. Would the anticipation of such a trip please you?”

Her cheeks suddenly rosy, the delightful blush that always seemed near flooding her face, she nodded, starting the soft ringlets around her face dancing merrily. “I would consider it a privilege, my lord.”

• • •

True sat staring out the window at the moonlit grounds of Lea Park. It had been a long, tiring day, with traveling, and then the demands of company and dinner, and conversation in the drawing room after dinner. And yet she was wakeful, restless in a way that was not like her.

A gentle tap at her door, and True called out, “Come in.”

Arabella swept into the room in her lacy nightrail, wrap, and morocco slippers. “I’m so glad you are still awake, True. I cannot sleep! I feel so agitated, and I don’t know why.”

True patted the window seat beside her and Bella, as True called her in their private moments, assumed the other corner. Heavy green drapes curtained the window but were pulled back and held in place by gold silk cord. True had not expected to be kept in such splendor, for when she visited Swinley Manor, her cousin—the mother, not the daughter—always made sure that she got the smallest, darkest room that was still on the family floor. But here at Lea Park she was being treated not as a poor relation but as an honored guest. It was a novel and welcome experience.

It was not that she really minded being often forgotten and seldom considered in people’s plans. Good-humored resignation more accurately reflected her feelings on that matter. It did not affect her firm belief that as one of God’s creatures she was the equal of any man or woman of any rank. That belief was radically different from the Church of England teachings she had grown up with, but she could think for herself, after all. That is why God gave her a brain. But she did understand the way of the world, and in that scheme she was a genteel but poor spinster lady. Which was why Lord Drake’s deliberate asking of her feelings on the proposed trip had touched her so deeply. His was a nobility of the heart, not just of rank, and she had never met his equal, in
any
sense.

“Why are you agitated, dear?” True said, resorting to the endearment she had used when Arabella was a little girl, and True her older, wiser cousin. True had a younger sister near Arabella’s age, and the three cousins had spent much time together, though that had not been so for four years or more, ever since Bella’s removal from the vicarage in preparation for her come-out into London society. That debut was delayed a year after Lord Swinley’s death, but Arabella had spent that year of mourning, True had always thought, in being drilled by her mother in all the ways to attract, flirt with and tease gentlemen.

Frowning, Arabella shed her slippers and tucked her feet up underneath her. “I don’t know. What do you think of Lord Drake, True? Is he not handsome? But he seems so very ferocious sometimes. He almost glares!”

“You’re not afraid of him, are you?” True could not believe that of her cousin. Bella was up to any rig when she was a child, and True’s younger sister, Faithful, would often have to run for help when their brave cousin got stuck up in a tree, or was being chased by a swarm of bees, or was surrounded in a field by a herd of cattle. It almost seemed impossible that that headstrong, independent child True had loved had become this elegant and sometimes icy young lady, but there were still occasional flashes of the impetuous girl she had been.

“Nnno,” Bella said, worrying at the skin that edged her thumbnail. When she realized what she was doing, she buried her hands in the frothy lace of her wrap. “I am certainly not afraid of him. He is just so different from when I first met him. You know, he bought his colors so young and is so much older than me that I never met him until last year, though our mothers have been friends this age. Mama and I have visited Lea Park before, but Lord Drake was always away.” She clasped her hands together and looked starry-eyed for a moment. “Oh, True, if you think he is handsome now, you should have seen him in his scarlet regimentals, and without that repulsive cane and limp. Devastating! And not only that, but he was so gallant, and courteous and . . . and I never saw anyone in London I liked half so well. Except maybe Lord Sweetan, but even he . . . well, he just was not like Lord Drake.”

“And he is different this year?”

“Very. He is brooding and moody, and that distasteful remark about childbearing! Really, I was shocked to my very core. Shocked and insulted.” Bella’s narrow, pretty face took on the petulant expression that made her look much more like her mother than she normally did.

“Really, Bella!” True was going to hold her tongue, but could not resist falling into the mother hen role she had played when her cousin was a little girl. “He meant no harm, you know. It was just a casual aside, and intended as a compliment to women’s strength. You had no reason to swoon, and I do not believe you really did. I saw you peeking when Lord Conroy was supporting you into the blue saloon.” True waggled her finger at her cousin, who looked abashed for just a moment.

But Arabella was not one to remain so for long. Her mother had drilled into her head that as the Honorable Miss Arabella Swinley, she was entitled to the best of treatment, and she would put up with no other. After all, one must never let the gentlemen have the upper hand, or they would take one for granted, her mother had told her.

“Mother says that a young lady should appear delicate and fragile at all times! What else was I to do at such a remark? Lord Conroy was most gratifyingly attentive, and very angry with his friend. He called him a base brute for frightening me that way.” Her haughtiness dissolved in one of her quicksilver mood changes, and she giggled.

“I must tell you, True, what you did not see. It was the funniest thing ever! Lord Conroy pressed my hand and said he would call Drake out for the insult. I tell you this with not a word of lying, I had had to do some quick work to avoid being the cause of a rift between lifelong friends.” She bit her lip and frowned. “That was not my intention. I was trying to show Lord Drake how frail and feminine I am. Mama always said that I am too independent. Gentlemen do not like that, you know. I must hide that until after marriage. That will be the time to assume the mantle of marital power.”

“Oh, Bella . . . you don’t really believe that, do you?”

She frowned. “But I do! If I am to be Viscountess Drake, I must show that I am worthy: stylish, delicate, a true lady.” She glanced over at True. “You seem to have found some way to get on with him. I was just the teeniest bit jealous, you know, when I saw you and Drake walking in the garden. Of course, I realized it was the merest kindness to walk out with you. Do you not think him all the more perfect for it? He saw how ill you fit into such elegant company and took you away.”

Truelove could think of no answer for that.

“What were you and Lord Drake really talking about on the terrace? It was not just about the war, I swan!”

“He asked me why I was not married, and I told him about Harry.”

“And about Mr. Bottleby?” Arabella eyed her with a squinted glance, then smoothed her expression. It would not do to get lines.

“I . . . I do not think I mentioned Mr. Bottleby’s name.”

“Why not?” Arabella said sharply. “Why would you not come right out and say you are considering an offer of marriage?”

True heard the sudden sharpness in Bella’s voice. That was the trouble; London had changed her cousin. Or rather, a prolonged exposure to her mother had changed the girl. Until Arabella was ready to be presented, Lady Swinley had seldom deigned to notice that she even had a daughter. Bella had spent most school vacations at the vicarage, True’s family home. But just before Bella turned eighteen, Lady Swinley had swept down, grasped her in her clutches and carried her off to London to be “finished,” dressed, and presented. Lord Swinley’s subsequent death had put off her presentation one year, but then at nineteen Arabella had been presented and London, or at least the male half, had been prostrate at her feet ever since, to hear her tell it.

And now, four years later, the sharp shrewishness of Lady Swinley was beginning to be evident in her daughter. Complimented, feted, adored, sought after as a diamond of the first water, Arabella was in a fair way to being spoiled.

“I did not mention Mr. Bottleby because I need that to be private, right now, until I make up my mind,” True said.

“You had best say yes,” Arabella said briskly. “It is likely to be the only offer you get at your age. I should not like to be a vicar’s wife, but it will do very well for you.”

A spurt of irritation flared within True. How like Arabella’s new personality to presume to tell her what to do! “I will not marry because it is the last proposal I shall get. I told you, I had quite given up the idea of marriage until Mr. Bottleby asked. I just am not sure what to do. I do not love him.” And could not see herself
falling
in love with him.

“But he has a fortune; you said that yourself, even if it is a small one. What else is there to consider? You don’t think to capture yourself a title, do you?”

True was hurt by the scorn she heard in her cousin’s voice. That was another unpleasant manifestation of the influence of Lady Swinley. “No, I do not think to capture a title.” She saw Bella relax just a little and frowned in puzzlement. “But neither will I be rushed into making a decision that will change my life. I urge you to be just as cautious. Do not marry Lord Drake just because he is a viscount and will someday be an earl. You need to search your heart, as Father says, and decide if this is what God wants for you.”

“God does not have to live with Lord Drake. I do!”

“Exactly right,” True said. “All the more reason to be careful. Be sure that marrying him is what will ensure both of your happiness, because Father says that an unhappy marriage is painful to God, but devastating to a man or woman.”

Arabella slipped from the window seat and started toward the door, carrying her slippers. She turned back, though, and said, “I have to marry, True. Why should it not be someone rich and handsome and titled? Mother says money and social position are the only things that do not depart in a marriage.” She shrugged, then turned and exited quietly.

After Arabella left, True sat staring at the pane of glass in front of her. Bella’s voice had held a note of . . . of what? Resignation? Yes, she rather thought it was that. But how sad to go into a marriage resigned to your fate. And how sad for Lord Drake if that was what his bride brought to him. He deserved so much more, as did Bella.

Finally, True slipped from the window seat and into her bed, to sleep at long last. And to dream . . . of strong hands and golden eyes and a voice that melted her heart.

Chapter Five

The day’s excursion to the viscount’s home had been a success, and now they sat on a blanket by the stream as restless Arabella and attentive Lord Conroy wandered off. Lord Drake drifted off to sleep. True daringly smoothed the golden curls from his face and watched as care and worry loosened their hold, and his gaunt face relaxed into the healing balm of sleep. For a sweet hour she listened to his calm breathing, while she gazed down on the stream and felt the peace of Thorne House seep into her. A light breeze sprang up, and the willow branches languidly danced and waved over the water while the ducks busily cruised up and down the waterway.

How serene it was! And how very beautiful, with old stands of woods in the misty distance over a small stone bridge that crossed the stream. They were in a valley, and she could see, rising on the other side of the narrow brook, fields broken up by hedgerows and copses of scrubby brush. Her companion had told them at lunch that no one had lived here for many years, though the home farm was still in use and the orchards tended, but that he intended to make it his home now that he had resigned his commission. She didn’t think she had ever found a place she liked so well. She could imagine Lord Drake in some hazy future, striding about the place with a brace of children and dogs following him as he came down to the stream to fish for the silvery trout that flashed and sparkled in the depths. In her daydream Drake was healthy and happy, all the gloom of his present convalescence dissipated by years of blissful and tranquil enjoyment of his home.