Barbara Metzger (2 page)

Winifred had no head for figures whatsoever. The general did; he shook his head angrily. It wasn’t enough blunt by half.

“I know, but there’s more. I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure, but the Clarkes’ daughter-in-law is increasing again, and there’s no room down at the mill. They are building a house, but they have agreed to rent our cottage for a few months until it’s ready. So we have all that, and Grandfather’s pension ... and my dowry.”

The general almost tore the arm off the chair with his good right hand and Winnie cried out, “Oh, no!”

Sydney stood, tossed her thick braid over her shoulder, and crossed her arms, looking like a small, defiant warrior-goddess from some heathen mythology. “Why not? That pittance won’t do me any good in Little Dedham, for I
won’t
marry a man who cannot add his columns.”

“What about Mr. Milke? You know he has always admired you.”

“The apothecary?” Sydney grimaced. “He’s already supporting his invalidish mother. Besides, he smells of the shop. No, I don’t mean to be a snob. He truly does, smell of the shop, that is. Asafoetida drops and camphor and oil of this and tincture of that. I cannot stand next to the man without thinking of
Macbeth’s
witches.”

Winifred smiled, as Sydney knew she would. “Very well,” Winnie said, “then we’ll use my dowry, too.” The idea was instantly overthrown.

“No,” Sydney insisted, “you shan’t go to your handsome hero as any beggar maid. We Lattimores have our pride too. And you must not worry, nor you either, Grandfather. Winnie is sure to attract the finest, most well-to-pass gentleman in all of London! He’ll be so smitten, he’s bound to open his wine cellars to you and his pockets to me. I’ll be so well-dowered, I’ll have to watch out for fortune hunters.”

And then, Sydney said, but only to herself, she could even marry a poor man if she loved him. Winnie would make a grand marriage, but Sydney vowed she’d become a paid housekeeper rather than wed without love.

* * * *

Winnie was dancing around the room, wheeling the general’s chair to an imaginary waltz. They would get to London after all, with parties and pretty gowns and handsome beaux. Sydney could do anything!

* * * *

Sydney could do
almost
everything. She could outfit her housekeeper’s twin sons, the Minch boys, as footmen and send them off to London to find lodgings. She could move the family, bag and baggage and grouchy general, to the perfect little house on Park Lane. They were on the fringes of Mayfair, but still thoroughly respectable. She could even face down Aunt Harriet, managing to convince that imposing dowager that the Lattimore sisters would be an asset: as eligible men flocked toward Winifred’s beauty, they were bound to notice Trixie’s ... ? What? The girl had no charms to recommend her. Lady Windham saw only what she wanted to see though, and was sure the town beaux would recognize her Beatrix’s better breeding, especially when compared to Sydney’s harum-scarum ways. The rackety gel even refused to wear corsets!

Sydney actually did the near impossible. She improved Trixie’s personality, if only by example, showing the browbeaten chit that lightning wouldn’t blast from the sky if Mama was contradicted. Trixie blossomed, if one could consider a horse laugh better than a genteel, coy simper.

What Sydney could not do, unfortunately, was make a pence into a pound, nor make one shilling do the work of five or ten. London was expensive. No matter how she figured, no matter how many lists she made or corners she cut, there was not enough money.

They had small expenses, like having calling cards printed, and subscribing to the fashion journals so they could study the latest styles. And medium expenses, like purchasing fine wines to offer the gentlemen who began to call, renting opera boxes, and hiring hackney carriages. In Little Dedham one could walk everywhere.

And there were big expenses Sydney had not counted on, like all the dresses considered
de rigueur
for a London miss. She had figured on a new wardrobe for Winnie but, never having been through a London Season, Sydney had not realized exactly how many different functions a popular young lady—and her sister, at Winnie’s insistence—was expected to attend. It would not do to wear the same gown too often either.

Sydney certainly never anticipated her own need for fashionable ensembles, nor that she would ever be too busy to sew her own gowns, as she and Winnie had done their entire lives. She surely never budgeted for an abigail to take care of their burgeoning wardrobes. And there was Aunt Harriet, yammering on about Sydney employing a paid companion to act as chaperone for the girls, as if the general and their devoted Minch-brother footmen were not enough protection—or expense.

But it was worth every groat. Sydney was thrilled at the feel of silks and fine muslins and, best of all, Winifred had caught the eye of Baron Scoville. He was perfect for Winnie, pleasant-featured, always courteous, well-respected in the ton, of an age to settle—and rich as Croesus! If he seemed a trifle starchy to Sydney’s taste, correct to a fault, she was quick to forgive this minor handicap in favor of the rancor in Lady Windham’s breast. Aunt Harriet had been measuring the baron for Trixie, and now he was paying particular attention to Winifred. What more could Sydney ask?

Of course the regard of such a social prize brought its own complications. The baron took his position as seriously as Aunt Harriet took her purse. He would never go beyond the line, and his associates must also be beyond reproof. His bride would have to be pretty and prettily behaved, an ornament to Scoville’s title. There could be no hint of straightened circumstances or hanging out for a fortune, no irregular behavior or questionable reputations, no running back to Little Dedham!

Sydney just had to get the money somewhere!

Chapter 2

Rights and Responsibilities

If love were a loaf of bread, Forrest Mainwaring, Viscount Mayne, would resume his naval commission and eat sea biscuits for the rest of his life. He’d take the acres of his father’s holdings under his management out of grains and he’d plant mangel-wurzels instead. Love was a bore and a pestilence that would choke the very life out of a man. If he let it.

“They’ll never get us, eh, Nelson?” The viscount nudged his companion, a scruffy one-eyed hound. Nelson rolled over and went back to sleep at Lord Mayne’s feet.

“You’re no better than Spottswood,” his lordship complained, thinking of the latest of his friends to turn benedict. Old Spotty used to be the best of good fellows, eager for a run down to Newmarket for the races or a night of cards. And now? Now Spotty was content to sit by the fire with his blushing bride. Mayne would blush, too, if he had so little conversation. Gads, Spotty was as dull as ... a dog.

Then there was Haverstoke, another one-time friend. Six months he’d been leg-shackled. Six months, by Jupiter, and he was already afraid of turning his back on the lightskirt he’d wed lest she plant horns on his head. “She would, too,” Forrest told the sleeping dog. “She’s tried to catch me alone often enough.”

Nigel Thompson had wed a Diamond. Now he was bankrupting his estate to keep the shrew in emeralds and ermine. The viscount poured himself another brandy and settled back in his worn leather chair. “Females ...”

Just then a plaintive howl echoed through the night. Nelson’s nose twitched. His ears quivered. Squire Beck’s setter bitch! The old dog was through the library window before his master could complete the thought: “Bah.”

Forrest was not quite the misogynist his father purported to be; the duke would expound on his pet theory at the drop of an aged cognac. Hamilton Mainwaring believed, so he said, that since women’s bones were lighter, their bodies less well-muscled, and their skulls smaller, they couldn’t possibly think as well as men. On the other hand, the Duke of Mayne would relate to his cronies at Whites, their brains were so stuffed with frills and furbelows, it was no wonder they made no sense. No one ever asked the duchess’s opinion.

The viscount did not share his father’s views, not entirely. He had great respect for his mother, Sondra, Duchess of Mayne. He even felt affection for his two flighty sisters, more so now that they were married and living at opposite ends of England. He also had a connoisseur’s appreciation for womanhood in general, and several discrete widows, a few high-born ladies with lower instincts, and the occasional select demi-mondaine in particular.

Forrest Mainwaring was not a monk. Neither was he a womanizer. At twenty-nine, he was considered by the ton to be worldly, and too wise to be caught in parson’s mousetrap. The viscount was a true nonpareil, one of the most attractive men in town, with extensive understanding and accomplishments in the fields of business, agriculture, the arts, and athletics. In addition, he was wealthy in his own right. Lord Mayne would have made a prime prize on the marriage mart if his views on the subject were not so well known. Zeus, he thought without conceit, he’d be hunted down like a rabid dog if the grasping mamas thought he could be cornered.

He couldn’t. The Duke of Mayne was in rude good health, and Forrest’s younger brother, Brennan, provided a more than adequate heir. His sisters were busy filling their nurseries, so the succession was assured. Forrest saw no other reason for him to submit to the ties that bind.

Bind, hell, the viscount considered, taking another sip of his glass. Bind, choke, strangle, fetter, hobble, maim. He shook his head, disarranging the dark curls. He liked women well enough; it was marriage, or the double yoke of love and marriage, that had this decorated hero quaking in his Hessians.

The viscount did not need his friends’ experiences to set him against the state of matrimony and the toils of love. He’d had enough examples aboard ship, when his fellow officers would discover their sweethearts had found someone else or, worse, their wives had. And the lovesick young ensigns, sighing like mooncalves over some heartless charmer, had Lieutenant Mainwaring feeling all the symptoms of
mal de mer.
No, even those reminders came too late; he’d learned his lessons far earlier, at his parents’ knees. His mother’s in Sussex, his father’s in London.

To say the Duke and Duchess of Mayne were estranged was gilding the lily. They were strange. They hardly spoke, seldom visited, and continued through years of separation to send each other tender greetings of affection—via their sons. And what a legendary love match theirs had been!

Hamilton and Sondra were neighbors, he the heir to a fortune and a trusted place at court, she the only child of a land-rich squire. They were too young, and from far different backgrounds and stations in life, so both sets of parents disapproved of the match. Naturally the young people eloped.

The early years proved them right. They were deliriously happy, spreading their time between travel on the Continent, joining the London swirl at the highest ranks, and riding for days over their lush fields, reveling in nature’s bounty. Then Hamilton ascended to his father’s dignities and, soon after, Sondra’s father’s acreage. Sondra started breeding, and the foundation of their marriage started cracking, along with every dish and piece of bric-a-brac in one castle, three mansions, and two hunting boxes.

Sondra wanted a nest; Hamilton wanted a foreign legation. The duchess loved the peace of the estates; the duke craved the excitement of court. She wanted a country squire; he wanted a political hostess. Mr. Spode had a standing order.

Children only aggravated the situation. Wet nurses versus mother’s milk, home tutors versus boarding schools, pinafores for the boys, ponies for the girls—everything was a bone of contention, and more crockery would fly. Finally the duke did accept an ambassadorship.

“If you leave the country, I shall never speak to you again,” Lady Mayne swore.

“Is that a promise?” Lord Mayne replied, already packing. “Well, if you don’t come with me, I shall never speak to
you
again,” he countered.

He went, she didn’t, and they enclosed loving messages in their children’s letters. The senior Lord Mayne returned often enough to toss a china shepherdess or two and drag his children into the tug-of-war. Forrest should be groomed for political life by running for a seat in the Commons, the duke decided. The duchess thought he should pursue further studies, as befitted a man with vast holdings to overlook, since his father neglected those duties.

The young viscount bought himself a commission and ran away to sea. The French blockade was more peaceful than life between the Maynes. That was some years earlier, and now they were arguing, through the mails of course, about Brennan’s future. At twenty-two Bren should have been making his own decisions, but his mother swore she would die of a broken heart if another son went off to war, and his father was holding out all the glitter of the City to keep the boy from turning into a country bumpkin.

So Mother raised dogs and roses in Sussex and the governor raised votes and issues in Parliament and the privy council. Brennan raised hell in London like every well-breeched young green
-
headed sprig before him ... and Forrest Mainwaring, Viscount Mayne, raised his glass.

It was his lot, though the Lord knew what he’d done to deserve the task, to look out for all of them. He moved between estates and far-flung holdings in the country, banking institutions and bawdy houses in the city, trying to safeguard the family investments and Brennan’s family jewels. He managed Mayne Chance, the ducal seat, and struggled to keep staff on at Mainwaring House in Grosvenor Square. The turnover in servants was not surprising considering the duke’s penchant for tossing the tableware; it was just difficult for his son.

Life in the country was not noticeably easier. Mother filled the castle with dogs: tiny, tawny, repulsive Pekingese, with their curling tongues, pop eyes, and shrill yips. Lady Mayne said raising the creatures was more satisfying than raising children. A man could not walk without fear of tripping over one of the ugly little blighters nor sit down without finding that gingery hair all over his superfines.