The Scandal Before Christmas (2 page)

A fairly short list of requirements, but that was the gist of it. “Appearance doesn’t matter. Not really. I don’t care if she is blond or brunette, long or short, so long as she can manage herself, and leave me in peace.” Most of the time anyway—he supposed she ought to be pleasant enough to look at, to make it easy to do his duty by the family, and get a brat on her. Poor girl.

At that less than cheering thought, Ian buried his face in his bitters, draining the tankard to the last. He surfaced to find the colonel regarding him as if he had sprouted two heads. “I know, I know. You think me mad.”

“I don’t know what to think,” the older man answered with a wary sort of wonder. “Are you quite serious?”

“I am entirely serious,” Ian said with a young man’s laughing bravado. “A quiet, easygoing girl is all I require. Even a bit of a cipher. But they’re damned thin on the ground this morning.”

“Not so thin as all that,” the colonel said carefully. “I may have exactly what you require.”

Ian felt his breath bottle up in his chest. “Are
you
entirely serious?”

“Quite. I do have a daughter who might do. My eldest, in fact. A girl who has just turned two and twenty, and a quieter, more unassuming girl you’ll never find. Born and bred in the country, without a thought for London. A quiet, sensible girl. Very happy to be left on her own. Prefers it, actually.”

Ian’s tankard fell to the table with a thump. “Does she have a portion?”

The colonel’s answer was swift and sure. “A thousand. And she’s not one for the fripperies. Never exceeded her allowance, very economical.”

It was enough to consider. And really, what choice did he have? It was not as if he had any other options or ideas to hand. “When might I meet her?”

“By Christmas, you said? I suppose you’d best come with me now, to Somersetshire, to meet her.”

Such a trip would take too much precious time, and Somerset was too close to the whole sphere of his father’s influence in Gloucestershire for comfort.

“Perhaps it might be better to have her see where I live presently, which is where she’ll be for the foreseeable future? Gull Cottage, out on the Isle of Wight, across the bay.” Ian made a vague motion out across the gray Solent, but he subdued his hands, and changed tacks at the sight of Lesley’s frown. “It’s lovely, really. And much larger than it sounds. A very handsome property and … it would be her dower property in the event of my death.”

Yes. The plan was forming in his brain, a plan that would serve both his father and himself. If he married the girl and got her with child quickly, his father would get what he wanted—a secure heir whom he might raise to the title instead of Ian, who knew nothing about estates and land management. And once Ian had safely gotten the girl with child, he would be free to return to his command.

Ian firmed his voice. “I had rather you brought her to see the property, as well as me. So she can see if living there will suit her.”

The colonel chewed on his bottom lip for a long moment of shrewd contemplation before he spoke. “I suppose I don’t see why not. A visit of a few days’ time, to see if you’ll get on together?”

“Yes.” Ian swallowed over the hot mixture of trepidation and excitement climbing up his throat. It would work. It had to work.

“We’re agreed to it, then?”

Ian extended his hand. “Agreed, sir.”

And so it had been arranged, right there in the taproom of the Ball and Anchor. Just as he deserved.

Chapter Three

Six days wasn’t much time in which to change one’s life. Still, more drastic changes had happened in fewer—his father had taken him from home, and deposited him at the Portsmouth Naval Yard all those years ago in less than three days. And the three-day interval waiting for the colonel to retrieve his daughter from Somerset had also given Ian enough time to travel to Doctors’ Commons in London to pay through the teeth to procure a special license.

He was, legally and ecclesiastically speaking, as ready as he could be.

Yet, now, as he stood on the steps of his rambling cottage, his gut knotted up tighter than a bosun’s fist at the sight of the hired chaise that drew down his long, meandering drive. He had faced French cannon with less trepidation.

But damn his eyes and his rising pulse, he would see it through. He would make it work.

Ian temporarily pushed all thoughts and concerns about Ross from his mind, and forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand. He gave his coat a firm, surreptitious tug—his long-suffering mother would have been near giddy at the change in his attire. Normally, he didn’t give two farthings for his appearance, but today he had taken care to tog himself in his best dress uniform bedizened with the gold braid. And his man Pinkerton had polished his Hessian boots to a blindingly glossy shine. All ridiculous vanity to look his best for Miss Lesley.

Ian let the winter wind chill the heat in his face, and took a deep, calming breath. Then he plastered his inscrutably professional naval officer’s smile upon his face, and prepared to meet his fate.

Colonel Lesley was the first to alight from the hired coach. He greeted Ian warmly, much as he had at Portsmouth—“Worth, my boy”—and then turned to assist his wife from the carriage.

Mrs. Lesley proved to be an exceptionally short woman of indeterminate middle years, who was clearly enamored of the sound of her own voice. She greeted Ian so effusively, he was nearly blown aback by the ceaseless chatter. “Oh, Lieutenant Worth. How very nice to meet you at last. I’m sure I’ve heard ever so much about you from the dear colonel. I’m sure I don’t know how to thank you for the invitation to spend a few days here by the sea. So thoughtful! I’m sure the sea air will do me no end of good. I said to my dear colonel, I said…”

If the daughter proved herself to be anything in the same pattern as the mother, he would have to learn to like staying out to sea.

“… how much nicer it is to visit a private home than to stay at an inn. Oh, what a lovely house you have here. Very pretty property. No, no,” she said, directing her servant girl. “We’ll leave the bags for the footmen. I’m sure the lieutenant has footmen enough, him being a viscount’s son.”

Actually, despite being a viscount’s son—or perhaps because of it—Ian hadn’t footmen at all. Old Angus Pinkerton normally acted as butler, valet, and cook all in one, but Pinky had wisely convinced Ian to bring on a local woman, Mrs. Totham, as a cook, along with her two stout daughters for the scullery, laundry, and cleaning for the duration of the Lesleys’ visit. He had assumed the Lesley ladies would bring a servant, or servants of their own, but there appeared to be only the one maid, hovering at the side of the carriage, whom he hoped could be impressed into serving at table for dinner—neither Pinky, with his odd assortment of sailorly clothes, nor the Totts, as he had come to call Mrs. Totham and her daughters, were fit to be seen in a drawing or dining room. As a habit, Ian had never kept comely, or even presentable young girls on staff at Gull Cottage. Not with his ramshackle friends.

“Well now.” Mrs. Lesley recalled Ian from his contemplation of servant problems by taking up the arm he had yet to proffer. “I thank you for your assistance, lieutenant. It is so nice that you are such a tall, strong, young man. A young man ought to be tall if he can help it, I always say. Well,” she repeated breathlessly as she puffed up the three short steps to the front door. “It is so fatiguing, all this travel. A body can get no rest with all the swaying and bumping and jostling. All the way from Somerset…”

She towed him along in her wake, swaying and bumping and jostling him so forcefully that he hadn’t even had a moment to catch a glimpse of her daughter. And there had to be a daughter. She was the whole reason for the visit. The tholepin of his future. “And Miss Lesley, ma’am?”

“Oh, she’ll get my satchel. You needn’t carry it for me.”

Well, damn his inattentive eyes. He had assumed the girl by the carriage was a servant from Mrs. Lesley’s tone of voice. But Mrs. Lesley had pointed the considerable prow of her bosom down the corridor, toward his private study, and was sailing him onward, still laying down covering fire with her constant stream of chatter. “A lovely house, with a very pretty aspect, to be sure, as I was saying to the dear colonel as we drove up. And this would be the drawing room…”

“No, ma’am. The drawing room would be over here.” He steered her helm back toward the front of the house, where Pinky held open the drawing room door, looking like a hopeful, aged cherub.

“Oh, yes. Very nice,” Mrs. Lesley exclaimed as she took in the sunny, warm room. “I expect she’ll do very well here. I’m sure she’ll like this room with all its sun and cozy seats. Very comfortable, to be sure, and not too grand.”

Mrs. Lesley was over-awed by his ancestry. But Ian had rather meet the girl—who still had not appeared within his vision—than assure the Lesleys that he was nothing like his too-grand family. Such a misapprehension was exactly why he had wanted them to bring the girl here, to his cottage, instead of anywhere else.

But where was she?

A quiet, unassuming girl, Lesley had said. Perhaps she was shy. Yes, shy was better than the alternatives playing the devil in his mind, turning her into an ogre, or worse, a nothing. Damn his eyes. He didn’t know what he’d do if she were a nothing. He taunted himself with the idea that ugly would at least be better than plain. Ugly was at the very least interesting.

Ian’s gut hitched itself into a tighter knot. But still he was the host. “May I offer you some refreshment before you are shown up to your rooms?” Ian turned to speak to Pinky about bringing in the coffee and tea when suddenly Ian felt, rather than saw, a small brown shadow behind the colonel.

Ian could have sworn that he had not heard or seen her enter, yet there she was, a sudden silhouette in the sunlight, creating a small presence behind her father.

The knot in his gut strangled itself in disappointment. Ian was entirely underwhelmed. The girl was as plain and unappealing as a pikestaff.

A pikestaff he had no alternative but to marry.

So plain and unassuming and quiet, even the colonel and his wife seemed unaware of her—the lady carried on without any acknowledgement of her offspring, while her father only noticed her belatedly when he stepped back from his inspection of some aspect of the room’s decoration—a model frigate Ian had constructed years ago when he had been a midshipman—and trod all over the hem of the girl’s gown.

Not that the gown would have been any great loss—it wasn’t much as fashion went. Certainly it was as plain and unadorned and dun-colored a traveling dress as he had ever seen, and it did very little to enhance the very plain appearance of its wearer.

Who was herself as plain and brown as a marsh wren. Brown bonnet, brown hair, brown gown, and quite possibly brown eyes. Ian wasn’t sure, because she kept her face turned resolutely down even as he came forward to greet her. “How do you do? I’m Ian Worth. Welcome to Gull Cottage.”

The girl curtseyed well enough, but would not look at him, and said not a peep. Ian was quite sure Miss Lesley—whose name no one had thought to offer him yet—was as unassuming and uninteresting as a dishcloth.

Just as he had so carefully specified, damn his eyes to hell.

He retreated behind the defensive barricade of civility and politeness, when Pinky bustled in with hot coffee and tea to revive the road-chilled travelers. “Would you take some tea, Miss Lesley?”

“Oh, yes, I thank you.” Mrs. Lesley took command of the entirety of the conversation like a jealous admiral. “I’ll arrange it.”

At that moment, Ian wanted nothing so much as a large glass of brandy or whisky. A very large glass. Large enough to drown himself in.

“What a lovely prospect down the lawn to the sea. And such furnishings,” Mrs. Lesley enthused. “Very tasteful. Not at all what I had envisioned for a bachelor’s establishment. But I wonder if your mother, the Viscountess Rainesford, might have taken a hand in assisting you with the decoration of the house? I had no idea you might be used to having everything so fine.”

With that remark, Mrs. Lesley turned an assessing eye on her daughter, as if she feared the girl were not fine enough for her potential surroundings. And though the daughter did not raise her eyes, she had clearly understood her mother’s uneasy perusal, for a sweep of high color blazed up her pale cheeks. Yet still, she did not speak.

But with the mother still carrying on—“This chimney appears to draw well. So important to have a fire that draws cleanly, don’t you think? I always say…”—no one could get a word in edgewise. It was no wonder the girl was a silent as the tomb.

God’s balls. Maybe she was a mute, who never spoke. Or couldn’t. Maybe—

“I’ll take tea, of course, and the colonel will take coffee.” Mrs. Lesley set herself directly next to the tray, but motioned meaningfully for the brown wren to do the actual work of pouring the cups of coffee and tea.

The girl did so, silently fulfilling her mother’s wishes, until she needed to address Ian’s choice. He waited hopefully for her to speak, but she merely glanced up at him, and with the barest lift of her brown eyebrows, asked for his preference by holding up an empty cup in question.

Yet Ian was intrigued by the spark or flash of something—something less docile than her outward behavior suggested—he fancied he saw in the depths of her otherwise ordinary brown eyes.

“Coffee,” he answered firmly over Mrs. Lesley’s observations on the salubrious effect of the local climate.

“… the sea air is bound to do a body good. Oh, how I envy you the sea air, Lieutenant Worth.”

She wouldn’t envy him when a freezing gale came howling down the Channel out of the North Sea and rattled the windows with lashings of sleet, but Ian let the comment pass. And kept his gaze on the quiet girl while she poured, giving him only a fleeting glimpse of her darkly intelligent eyes when she raised them in silent inquiry over the cream and sugar.

He shook his head in answer, and tried to give her an encouraging smile.

She didn’t smile back.

Well, damn his eyes. Perhaps she really was a mute. Perhaps that was why the colonel was so willing to be rid of her. On the other hand, perhaps a wife who was unable to nag would prove a boon to domestic harmony. He had to hope.