The spinster and the wastrel (12 page)

"Because your gambling affects more than you. The money you spend is earned by the labor of your tenants."

"Yet it is my money."

"It would be better spent on your estate. For instance, the cottages of your tenants are nearly in ruins. Sir Nigel never kept them up."

"I am well aware that my uncle never spent a farthing unless it worked for his own comfort or wealth. Remember, I lived with the man."

"Then you will forgo the card room tonight?"

Smiling, he placed his hand over hers. She felt its warmth through her glove, and a glow spread to her heart and down to her toes.

"I will not seek the card room," he promised. "But what would you have me do instead?"

"Dance?" she suggested.

"Why, Miss Courtney, how forward of you!"

For one of the first times in her life, she felt the heat of a blush radiate from her cheeks.

"I did not mean with me," she mumbled. Then she spotted the teasing amusement in his eyes.

Standing, he bowed before her. "I would love to dance this next set with you—or do you think the ladies of the village would gossip avidly if you partnered me twice in a row?"

To her surprise, she found she did want to dance with him again. Despite her interference in his life, he had listened to her. She was used to men denouncing her as a meddling old maid, along with other terms. But Baronet Westcourt had agreed with her. She felt greatly in charity

towards him. Besides, lately her life had done nothing but provide entertainment for the gossips of Upper Brampton. "I would love to dance with you," she told him.

During tea the next afternoon, Annette and Lucille discussed the previous night's Assembly.

"He wanted to gamble in that card room," Annette said, "but I just could not allow it."

Lucille shook her head in dismay. "It's that moneylender's fault."

"I wish you were right, but no, he was only trying to collect the money due to him. I fear Sir Gerard is the wastrel his uncle declared."

Sipping her tea, Lucille thought a moment. "You know, Annette, betting is not frowned upon among his class."

"I believe a gentleman always pays his debts of honor first to those of his own class. It is the tradesmen who are delayed and thus suffer." She reached for one of the cakes arranged on the tray. Their cottage now possessed the luxuries of a cook and a maid.

"Sir Gerard must have always paid what he owed, or else he wouldn't still be accepted by society," the other woman pointed out.

"Where on earth would he obtain the funds to bet? Not from Sir Nigel. That must be how he met with the moneylender."

A slight knock announced the arrival of the maid. "Mr. Linton is here."

With a startled gasp, Annette hastily set her cup down. "Oh, dear! I forgot I promised to ride in his carriage today."

Lucille ran a quick assessing look over her friend's wardrobe. "Thank goodness you are not wearing one of

those ugly brown dresses. That dark green will do very well to receive him." To the maid she said, "Please show him in."

Annette cast a fulminating glance at her companion, but could not respond further, since Mr. Linton entered the room. He wore a dark wool coat tailored to show him to an advantage. However, as she stood to greet him, she could not stop the brief thought that expert tailoring displayed better on the baronet.

After greetings, Mr. Linton asked her, "Are you ready?"

"Just let me get my coat and bonnet," she said.

"The day is cool but the sun is warm. Also there is no wind," he informed her. "It is a fine day for a drive."

"I look forward to it."

Very shortly, they were tooling down the road outside the village. Annette savored the brisk air in her lungs, but kept her hands warm inside her fur muff. It had been several days since any fresh snow had fallen. None remained on the bare branches, but wide patches of it lay off the road beneath the trees. Little traffic was out despite being late afternoon, so Mr. Linton's skills as a driver were not in demand. Instead, they passed the drive in conversation.

"Sir Gerard is my best friend," Linton said. "That's why I came with him when his uncle died."

"Your deed bespeaks a generous heart," Annette replied.

He snorted. "I'm not the one who expected to be generous. I thought Sir Gerard could help me out with my financial difficulties."

"Gambling?"

"You needn't freeze up on me that way, Miss Courtney. Betting is fun."

"Not when you bet more than you can afford."

"But that is how men like Sir Gerard and me survive in this world."

"Through gambling and debts?" Her assessment of the baronet's character and that of his friends was getting worse and worse.

Guiding the horse, Linton shook his head. "It's not the way you think."

Since she did not intend to leap from the moving carriage to escape the taint of his apparent wickedness, she said, "Why don't you explain it to me, then?"

"We live by our wits and the social round. There is no other place for us in society."

Annette mulled this statement over as the horse clip-clopped along the wet lane. "I am afraid I still don't understand."

"Society is based upon expectations. It is not only who you are, but whom you will become. Me, I don't have much in the way of expectations. I am the younger son of a younger son. There's not much open to me."

"Nonsense, Mr. Linton. You and I both know that many younger sons make their way in this world through the church, the army, or the law."

He gave a dry laugh devoid of humor. "Do you think I haven't considered those paths? I am not army mad. I like my creature comforts too much, thank you. Nor am I devout enough for the church."

Despite the example of her father, Annette privately agreed that too many of the clergy did not properly lead their flocks. "There remains the law."

His hoarse laugh grated on her nerves. "The law! Somehow I cannot picture myself locked away in a musty old office like your solicitor."

"Mr. Keller is a very fine man," she defended. "And he has helped me greatly."

"Only because you have the money."

Although she disliked his assessment, she privately agreed that it was probably true and dropped her defense.

He continued, "Money and title determine your place in society. I have neither, but Sir Gerard had the expectations of inheriting both when his uncle died."

"It seems a morbid way to live," she remarked. "Spending your whole life waiting for another's death."

He shrugged. "It's the way life is. Sir Gerard used his expectations to support himself. The prospective title of baronet was real enough to society, but he had no allowance to enable him to live among the ton as he deserved."

Annette thought of the baronet's fine clothes, exquisite manners, and magnificent horse. "I am not sure any amount of allowance would have enabled him to live at the standard he preferred. Just look at his clothes and his horse."

"Oh, no, Miss Courtney, you wrong him!" In his earnestness, Mr. Linton loosened the reins, and immediately the horse began to slow. "The clothes and his horse are all that Sir Gerard owns. He earned the horse when a colt in exchange for some training he provided. He could not bear to sell him, despite the price he would bring. The clothes he needs to go about in society."

Shocked, Annette asked, "You mean he has no money of his own?"

"During the Season, he lives by the social round with its dinners and dances, which is why the clothes are so important. At other times he is invited to different country estates where he will help train the owner's horses—but

only in a gentlemanly fashion, you understand. He raised Silver Shadow to be the horse he is today."

Annette sank back against the seat, her mind in a whirl. At last she was beginning to comprehend Sir Gerard's position. "No wonder he wants the fortune so badly."

Linton's face brightened. "Does that mean you will now give it to him?"

She glanced sharply at him. Linton freely proclaimed himself the baronet's friend. Perhaps this tale was only invented to gain her sympathy. Yet, it had the ring of truth. "If Sir Gerard needed money to live on so desperately that he must sponge off others, why did he never visit his uncle?"

"What makes you think he was welcome at Hathaway Hall?" Linton slapped the reins across the horse's back. "You knew the old baronet, Miss Courtney. Would he have taken his nephew in?"

She remembered the thundering lectures about the "wastrel" she had been forced to endure. "His duty ..." she began, but both her voice and argument were weak. She knew Sir Nigel had cared not a fig about his duty. Not to his nephew and not to his tenants. Only her constant persistence had gained the meager amounts she had wrested from him.

Linton continued on as if he had not heard her. "We both attended Cambridge, but I lasted longer. When Sir Gerard was sent down from school, he did not even bother to head for Upper Brampton village. There was nothing for him at Hathaway Hall. Instead, he went to London where he quickly learned the social skills necessary to survive. Eventually, I followed him."

Having experienced Sir Gerard's social abilities for herself, Annette knew how well he could charm. Some-

how she never thought of proper deportment as a means of support. To her, manners were something a civilized person lived to make life beautiful and serene, not for financial reasons.

Linton's revelations about his friend's life confused her. The way of life he described sounded wrong, but she, too, had suffered from the meanness of Sir Nigel's character. How much worse life must have been for a boy growing up under his care! She shuddered at the picture. The past should not excuse Sir Gerard's way of life, but she understood what drove him to it.

She laid a hand gently on Linton's arm. "Thank you for telling me about the baronet's past."

He glanced at her arm and grinned. "I don't suppose you would be interested in marrying me? I am not considered too demanding a fellow by my friends."

Knowing his heart was not in the proposal, she laughed. "No, I fear I must decline your offer. I think you are looking more for a steady allowance than a wife."

"Sometimes the only way to get that allowance is with a wife," he retorted, but the grin remained on his face.

In that lighthearted mood, the drive ended. Yet even during the next day's school lessons, Annette continued to ponder what she had learned. Had Sir Nigel willed away the money as a final infliction of spite upon his nephew? She had never comprehended why she was chosen. Perhaps she was only an instrument of vindictiveness. She disliked that prospect.

No matter what the reason, she had inherited. Looking around the schoolroom at the children industriously scratching on their slates, she knew she used the wealth to good purpose. These children were hers. Not of her body, but of her longing.

Jack quickly asserted his abilities, and now she regarded him as her prize student. He was the son of one of the baronet's tenant farmers, yet he displayed an aptitude for learning that secretly astonished her. Far sooner than she had expected, she would have to do something about finding a position for him. Her heart swelled with pride at discovering such riches in her student.

Little Molly sat on a bench in front of Jack. She was the baker's daughter. Her laborious movements on the slate were not as certain as the boy's, but her tongue sticking out between her teeth indicated her determination. When the girl glanced up, Annette smiled with encouragement.

Although different from Sir Gerard's, these children had hard lives, too. He had faced enmity from the one who should have offered a home. Her students faced physical hardship and sometimes abuse, but none of them were actively hated by those who were charged to care for them. Which was worse, to be an inconvenient child or one who was actively hated?

She knew they eagerly waited her ringing of the dismissal bell, and then they would tear off for their homes. For just a moment, she delayed and savored the feeling that they were her family.

"That is all for today," she announced, and she clanged the dismissal bell.

Immediately the chatter and clatter of children resounded in the building. Reveling, Annette let the happy sounds wash over her. Too quickly the booted feet stamped on the wooden floor and disappeared outside.

She barely had time to call, "Molly!"

The girl paused at the threshold, one hand on the door. "Yes, Miss Courtney?"

Annette recognized Molly's impatience to be gone

with her friends. Besides, what could she ask for from the little girl? To ask for a hug like a mother receives? An embrace that was demanded held no meaning.

"Be careful going home," she said.

"I will," Molly promised as she dashed through the door.

No one else remained in the schoolroom.

Slowly Annette made her way between the rows. She realigned the benches knocked askew in the hasty departure, stacked the slates neatly on a table, and banked the fire in the new stove. It did a much better job of warming than the old one, but there was no need to heat an empty room. With the students gone, she was more aware of the size of the warehouse. Its hollowness pressed down on her. She poked angrily at the fire before slamming the stove door shut. Somehow her dream of a village school did not satisfy her. She felt as hollow and empty as the warehouse.

After all, the children were not really hers. She could no longer fool herself with the pretense that they were.

Ghaptm cMne

The clerk showed Annette into the solicitor's office. Mr. Keller came from around his desk to greet her and offer her a chair. The room felt as closed in and stuffy as the last time she had visited.

When she had been seated and the pleasantries dealt with, Annette asked, "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes." Mr. Keller had returned to his desk and now busied himself with a stack of papers there. "I need to discuss with you some improvements the mill steward is recommending for his shop. He would like to bring in some new machinery."

"Surely if he recommends it, I would agree with him. He is the one most knowledgeable about the matter, after all."