The Gallant Guardian (11 page)

“Hmmm.” Seeming to ponder his strategy. Max tried to cover up his fit of abstraction, but it was no use, as the next move was an obvious one.

Charlotte glanced over at him, a twinkle in her eye. “That won’t fadge, my lord. Come, admit it, you were woolgathering.”

He grinned self-consciously. “Is it so obvious, then? Yes, I was. I was thinking how much I enjoy your company.”

“My company!” It was Charlotte’s turn to look slightly self-conscious.

“Yes, your company. I have never met a woman like you. You are comfortable to be with. Most women expect a constant stream of flattering speeches and admiring remarks about their persons and their attire.”

“Oh.” Charlotte digested this slowly. She had never aspired to be the sort of woman he was referring to; on the other hand,
comfortable
seemed hopelessly dull. “I suppose that when I have someone else to talk to I would rather discuss something other than myself, something interesting.”

“A rare female indeed, unique, in fact.”

“But surely your mother, or aunts, or cousins, did not expect constant flattery from you.”

“On the contrary, my mother, when she noticed me at all, demanded nothing but that.”

There was no hiding the bitterness in his voice. Charlotte’s eyes softened. Poor little boy, she thought. Even now she could hear the loneliness in his voice. It was strange to think of the dashing Marquess of Lydon as a neglected little boy, but the bleak look in his eyes and the dispirited hunch of his shoulders gave him away. Oddly enough, Charlotte found herself wanting to make it all up to him, to give him the care and attention he had apparently never had from his mother and the warmth of feminine nurturing. She had been only five when her mother had died, but even she, despite all the intervening years, could remember the love and comfort that had been her mother. How very sad never to have known that.

“And checkmate.” Charlotte’s train of thought was rudely interrupted as Lord Lydon took her king.

“Blast! I should never have allowed you to distract me so. That is what comes of allowing one’s head to be turned by flattery. I should have been warned by your ruinous reputation, but I ignored it, and to my peril. I
never
lose at chess.”

Maximilian could not help chuckling at her discomfiture. It was such a refreshing change to find a woman who made no excuse for employing her intellect, but was proud of it instead. “Now where had you any news of my reputation?”

“Oh, it is common enough knowledge, my lord,” Charlotte responded airily as she slowly picked up the ivory and ebony chessmen.

“As though you ever listened to common gossip, or were even in any of the ballrooms and drawing rooms where such rumors have their beginnings.”

“Very well,” she admitted, “In addition to the Winslows, Cousin Almeria said that you were accounted a shameless flirt and that no lady of any character would have anything to do with you.”

“Ah, the oracle.”

“Well, Almeria
is
concerned for my welfare.” Charlotte shot a teasing glance at him. “And naturally, I am too.”

“What a plumper! And you are nothing of the sort. It is my belief that you, clever witch, are trying to discover just what it is that I have done to earn that reputation.”

The man was entirely too acute, Charlotte acknowledged as she schooled her features into an expression of prim astonishment. “Why I would
never…
”

“I warn you, Lady Charlotte, I
am
more than seven, you know.”

“Very well, then, what
have
you done to deserve your reputation?”

Her about-face caught him completely off guard. “Well, I…well…” he began helplessly. “Dash it, Lady Charlotte, no man talks to a woman about such things, especially a guardian to his ward.”

“Oh pooh. You just finished telling me that I was not like other women.”

He was no proof against the teasing light in the big green eyes. In fact, as she sat there, elbows on the table, chin resting in her hands, she looked more like a mischievous sprite than a young woman who had been shouldering the cares of a large estate and a simple-minded brother for the last ten odd years. She looked…adorable, and at the moment, he wanted nothing so much as to plant a kiss on the tip of her pert little nose.

What was wrong with him? Ruthlessly he squelched the thought. He was her guardian and she, for all her intelligence and capabilities, was little more than a girl in so many ways. Perhaps it was only an avuncular kiss that he wanted to give her, he comforted himself. An elusive dimple hovered at the comer of her mouth as her lips parted in a tiny smile, and he knew that the kiss he wanted to give her had nothing to do with avuncular feelings.

“I expect you are considered dangerous because you are not married, and as far as most women are concerned, men exist only to marry them. You are unnatural, my lord.”

“No, merely interested in things other than flirtation. I have better things to do with my time than dance attendance on some demanding beauty.”

“What things?”

Maximilian shot a suspicious glance at her, but she was no longer teasing; she was genuinely interested and, much to his surprise, Lord Lydon found himself telling her all about his life in India and even about his business affairs in London. Threatened by the enervating boredom of life in the
ton,
the marquess had maintained his interest in commerce and affairs that had been sparked in India. It was perhaps fair to say that he was just as well recognized and sought after in the City as he was in the ballrooms of society’s most fashionable hostesses.

Charlotte listened with a good deal of amazement and dawning respect. Her incredulous expression showed Max more clearly than anything she could have said that heretofore she had considered her guardian to be nothing more than a frivolous man of the world—intelligent perhaps, but a useless fribble, nonetheless.

“Then you, my lord, are the perfect person to ask about the article I just read in
The Edinburgh Review
entitled “An Inquiry into the practical Merits of the System for the Government of India under the Superintendance of the Board of Controul.”

It was the marquess’s turn to look surprised. That his ward was very clever he had no doubt, but he did not expect her to be quite so well informed or curious about the more complex affairs of the day. “And what is it that you wished to know?”

“It appears from the article that there are two differing philosophies in regard to the English presence in India: one, espoused by Lord Wellesley and the Board of Controul that, in the hopes of eventually increasing profits, the English should increase the territory in India that is under their influence despite the increased cost, and the other, held by the Court of Directors and the Marquess of Cornwallis, that the English should limit acquisition and then devote attention to the establishment of good government, the development of a sound system of justice, and the creation of a thorough understanding of the situation. Which philosophy do you prefer?”

For a moment Max was more intrigued by the tiny wrinkle that appeared between her eyebrows and the way her right eyebrow rose higher than the left when she considered a serious problem. He had flirted with countless women, had been beguiled by coquettish smiles and lascivious glances, he had observed them in court dress and abandoned deshabille, but he had never actually watched one think before, and he found it oddly attractive and somehow more intimate than many of the more physically familiar scenes in which he had actively participated.

The questioning look deepened, and Charlotte’s right eyebrow rose a fraction of a degree higher. He realized that she was waiting for a reply. “Oh, er, Cornwallis or Wellesley…well, the author of the article makes it appear a simple choice between the two when in reality it is not. What works in Bengal does not necessarily work in Madras, and it depends so much on who is doing the deciding that it is difficult to say which is correct.” Lord Lydon could see the disappointment in her face and was acutely aware that his ward was relegating him to the ranks of adults who, when they could not be bothered to explain a thing, blamed it on the questioner’s lack of intelligence or experience. As a bright, inquisitive child, he had suffered from that far too often to do it to someone else.

“Forgive me, I do not mean to sound condescending or to avoid the question, but the thing of it is, if there were a simple answer, it would have been done long ago and no article would have been written.”

“And I expect it also depends on answering the question of why the English are in India at all. If they are there to make a profit, then one answer is correct; if they are there to bring peace and order, then the other is.”

“Precisely.” The marquess leaned forward as he thought for a moment, gazing into the fire, a faraway look in his eyes. “But it is also a question of immediate profit or later profit At the moment, what England really needs is a market for manufactured goods. Napoleon has closed the continent to us and unfortunately, India is not yet advanced enough to use our manufactured goods. It only provides us with raw materials, but in time, with good administration and development, it could grow to need the manufactured ones.”

There was an excitement in his voice that Charlotte had never heard before, and the intensity of his pose, the thrust of his head and shoulders as he stared into the flames, revealed a pent-up energy that was carefully held in check, hidden skillfully under his mocking pose of cynical boredom. This was the real Lord Lydon. This was the man her father had chosen as their guardian. No wonder Cecil had decamped so quickly and with so little protest, for the marquess was a force to be reckoned with. Charlotte wondered briefly, if irrelevantly, what Cecil would do when the marquess returned to London, but she pushed that thought quickly out of her mind as something too unpleasant to be considered at the moment.

“Then you must agree with the philosophy that says the English should concentrate on settling and administering the territories already within their sphere of influence rather than expanding further.”

“And why do you think that?” The gray eyes, dark as slate, seemed to bore into her.

“Well…well…” Suddenly unsure of herself under his scrutiny, Charlotte faltered. After all, who was she, a country-bred young woman who had barely traveled beyond Harcourt, to speak of foreign trade to someone as worldly as Lord Lydon. But it was only the hesitation of a moment, as she told herself that there was nothing lacking in her intelligence—only in her experience. “Well, if it is as you say that we need more market for manufactured goods, then the more the English settle in India and export their way of life there, the more India will want the manufactured goods the English have to sell. And besides, war in general, and armies in particular, are so very expensive, even if new territory is gained.”

The marquess’s eyes gleamed and he chuckled. “Precisely so, and that is why I say it is all a matter of time as to whether or not it is profitable to concentrate on administration. But the politicians who are concerned with the renewal of the East India Company’s charter only ask if it is profitable at the present moment; they do not have the foresight to consider how profitable it might be in the future.”

“Perhaps that is because they are politicians, and politicians are, in the main, concerned with the present, whereas those involved in commerce and investment look more toward the future. It appears to me that only the truly great politicians try to see what the future holds and then shape their politics accordingly.”

“Hmmmm. That is a truly provocative thought. The politicians, however, would not thank you for such a disparaging view of their calling, but I do think there is merit to what you say.” Not only was there a great deal of sense in what Charlotte had said, it was the most stimulating conversation Lord Lydon had shared in some time with anyone—man or woman. In fact, the last conversation that he had enjoyed this much had been with Charlotte’s father. It was easy to see how she had come by her native intelligence, but what had inspired her to keep herself so well informed? “How does it happen that someone who lives so far removed from all these questions follows them so closely and with such thoughtfulness?”

“You mean, how is it that a mere woman interests herself in things that are the proper concerns of men?” Charlotte fairly bristled with defensiveness.

“No, not at…well, yes.” Max’s apologetic smile was completely disarming. “You must admit that, for whatever reason, most women concentrate exclusively on their clothes, their households, or their gardens, and that makes you a singular woman. How did you come to be that way?”

There was no resisting the flattery of genuine interest, especially when no one had ever before evinced the least curiosity about Lady Charlotte Winterbourne, her likes and dislikes, her passions and pursuits. “Papa was always devoted to politics, even when Mama was alive. After she died, he dedicated his life to them. When I could read well enough, I discovered that his activities and speeches in Parliament were often mentioned in
The Times,
so I read it every day to follow what he was doing. Then I was able to write him letters that would be of interest to him.”

It was explained simply enough, but there was no hiding the longing in her voice or the loneliness in her eyes, at least not from someone who had also longed for attention from distant and disengaged parents in much the same way she had. Maximilian suddenly had a vision of Charlotte as a young girl poring over the papers and scratching out long letters to her father in a desperate effort to reach a man who barely, if ever, acknowledged her existence. His mind flashed back to the former Earl of Harcourt’s chambers awash in books and papers and he pictured the stacks of letters that covered the earl’s desk. How many of them had been from Charlotte?

The marquess had not yet dealt with the former earl’s personal effects. He had felt somehow uncomfortable going through the belongings of someone who was not a relative, but now he was eager to collect them and restore them to the daughter who had been so desperate to know him. For the moment, however, Maximilian resolved that however much the earl might have ignored his daughter, her guardian was going to pay attention to her, to appreciate and encourage the mind that had devoted itself to those worldly affairs that had been her father’s obsession. Fortunately, these affairs were equally as engrossing to him, and Lydon looked forward to further discussions.