Thea's Marquis (18 page)

“There is one little problem I ought to mention,” Roderick said gravely, but with a twinkle in his eye. “Will came with me, so he must walk home or outstay his welcome.”

“Mr. DeVine is so agreeable a gentleman, neither Meg nor Mama will withdraw his welcome after a quarter of an hour. Indeed, I think it a very silly rule, for those who are determined to stay do so anyway.” She cast a reproving glance at Mr. Glubb-ffoulkes, who winked at her.

“And the agreeable people, with whom one wishes to converse at length, politely take themselves off,” the marquis added with a grin. “When you condemn men for foolish wagers, remember that morning calls are a female institution, with rules set by the ladies.”

“At least morning calls do no harm,” she retorted.

“I dispute that. Consider the rule that requires duty calls, on all sorts of petty occasions. When I think of the hours I have wasted in excruciating boredom...”

Laughing, she conceded the point and enquired, “I trust this is not a duty call?”

“Fishing for compliments? How could I possibly be bored when I never know what you will say next!”

Her mother’s entrance saved her from having to respond. Reluctantly, the dowager agreed to take her daughter’s place in the drawing-room. Roderick beckoned Will over and explained that he was to be stranded in Russell Square for an hour or so.

Brightening, Will looked back at Meg, but he obligingly set himself to entertain the dowager. Thea dashed off to fetch her bonnet and pelisse.

Peter, the new tiger, was proudly walking Lord Hazlewood’s greys around the square. When he saw Thea, he delved into the pocket of his livery coat and thrust a smudged scrap of paper into her hands.

“Look, miss, look. Rosie writ me a letter. You ’member my Rosie, miss? You c’n read it if you want.”

In crooked capital letters, Thea read, “DEAR PETER, YOUR AFFECT. SISTER ROSE.”

A sudden memory brought tears to her eyes. She had been about Rosie’s age when Jason went away to school. She had missed her big brother, had written to him, then gradually had adjusted to his absence.

“That is splendid, Peter,” she said, returning the precious letter to the boy. She turned to Rod and said accusingly, “My lord, you have not been to Hazlemere recently!”

“True.” He handed her into the curricle, took the reins from Peter, and joined her as his tiger jumped up behind. The temptation to tease was irresistible. “I fear I have been gadding about in Town, taking young ladies for drives in the Park, paying morning calls, dining out, and even dancing on occasion. A shocking waste of time.”

“Oh dear, and I was going to ask you to waste some more time on me.” Her guilty expression delighted him.

“You were?”

“To practise riding. It is so long since I was on horseback, I dare not ride in public lest I make a fool of myself. But I should not mind you seeing me.”

He wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or regretful that she was willing to look foolish to him. All too clearly, she did not regard him as a suitor—but then, he was not ready to regard himself as such.

Just because he was haunted by the memory of holding her trembling body in his arms, of a leaf in her hair and her soft lips so close; just because his heart lightened with joy at the sight of her, at the very prospect of seeing her—those were no reasons to kick over the traces and tie himself down for life. No good reason to mix his metaphors, either, he thought wryly.

“Why the sudden desire to ride again?” he asked with casual curiosity, turning into Great Russell Street.

“Lord Stewart keeps inviting me to ride with him.”

A flash of furious jealousy startled him.
Was
he ready to regard himself as a suitor? He’d be damned before he gave his assistance for a rival’s benefit. He summoned calm. “Surely your brother would be the best person to help you relearn the skills.”

“Jason? Yes, I suppose so. Only I hate to tear him away from Penny now that all is going so well.” She turned a joyful face to him, then blushed adorably and said with sudden shyness, “You recall what I told you? About Penny and Jason?”

“How could I forget?” He glanced warningly at Peter, perched just behind them and undoubtedly all ears.

She nodded. “Jason’s absences were not what she feared. He told us all this morning. He has been working to persuade Penny’s lawyers to let him spend some of her capital on improvements to Newkirk. They insisted on detailed figures of the prospective income, so he had to track down a number of landowners with similar properties and talk them into providing the information. That is why he was out at all hours.”

“He has succeeded?” Only Thea’s enthusiasm leavened Rod’s utter boredom with the subject of Kilmore’s finances.

“They will even sell out Consols enough to buy back two of the farms Papa sold.” Her forehead wrinkled. “I am not perfectly sure what Consols are.”

“Consolidated Funds, which are government bonds. A safe investment, much to a lawyer’s taste.”

“Oh.” She sounded not much the wiser. “Anyway, the lawyers have also agreed to set aside two thousand pounds’ worth of five-per-cent Consols each for Meg and me. I know it is not a great sum, but do you not think that Meg will have more choice of suitors with a small dowry than with none?”

“It is too little to make any difference to a wealthy man, or to tempt fortune-hunters, happily. If she wished to marry a gentleman of small means—a vicar, say, or an aspiring politician—a hundred a year might turn the scales.”

“Someone like Mr. Mills or Lord Frederick, you mean? I wonder whether I ought to try to discourage them. Meg has been used to making do with very little, but I should like to see her marry someone who can provide the comforts of life.”

“My dear girl,” he said, exasperated, “that is surely a matter for your mother and your brother to concern themselves with.”

The hurt in her voice reproached him. “I do not mean to interfere, only Mama would not know how to go about rejecting a suitor, and Jason has other matters on his mind. Every moment he can spare from Penny, he vows to devote to perusing
Practical Observations on the Improvement and Management of Mountain Sheep.”

Rod was going to explain that his annoyance was directed at Kilmore and the dowager, but they reached Oxford Street and a tangle of traffic absorbed his attention. As he steered the high-bred greys between hackneys, drays, elegant carriages and pedestrians apparently attempting suicide, he was very much aware of Thea sitting silently beside him. Why the devil had he chosen to drive down one of the busiest shopping streets in the world? By the time they reached Hyde Park, it would be time to turn around and go back.

The Tyburn Turnpike came into view. Traffic thinned and he turned into the Park. Few people were about. Perhaps the ton felt qualms about enjoying the fashionable promenade with Princess Charlotte not yet in her grave. Or perhaps it was simply the threatening clouds overhead that kept them away. Whatever the reason. Rod was glad that interruptions were unlikely.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “What your mother and brother do is none of my business, and believe me, I do not think you interfering.”

Her unhappy face cleared. “Then may I ask you something? Do you know whether Mr. DeVine has serious intentions towards Meg?”

“No, I have no idea.” Once again she had taken him by surprise. “I doubt if he knows himself. He made your sister’s acquaintance only a month ago, after all. Serious intentions take time to ripen.”

“Do they? Yes, I daresay love at first sight is a myth propagated by those novels Meg reads. In that case, no doubt you cannot tell me whether Mr. Glubb-ffoulkes has serious intentions.”

Noting the hint of mischief in her dark eyes. Rod laughed. “The only thing that could astonish me more than Uncle Reggie proposing would be Miss Megan accepting him.” He decided he ought to put in a good word for his cousin. “She could do worse than Will, however. Not only is he well to pass, but equally important, his estate, Goff’s Acre, is in Hertfordshire, less than twenty miles from London. She would never have to endure a long journey.”

She smiled. “A point worth considering if your cousin should decide to press his suit.”

She consulted him seriously about the eligibility of several young men, and he did his best to answer. After a quick circuit of the Park, they started back towards Bloomsbury.

“Was that why you inveigled me into deserting Will?” he asked when she ran out of Meg’s suitors.

“That, and the news of Penny and Jason, and the riding practice, and there was something else. What was it? Oh, Lady Cheverell. She has invited me to tea tomorrow, for the kind of conversation one cannot have during a morning call. I like her so much.”

“Yes, she is an amiable lady, and charitable. Her father was a country vicar, I believe, and her brother also.”

“Really? How odd that Society considers itself so exclusive, yet I keep meeting people with quite common-place connections. How can anyone look askance at Penny? Why, Lady Emma Osborne herself just told me she eloped with an India nabob.”

“An aspiring politician of far from meagre means.” Rod did not comment—lest it should make her self-conscious—that Thea was beginning to have a most satisfactory acquaintance among the ton. In time, he thought, she might even overcome her bashfulness with strangers. “As for the riding,” he went on, “I can take you out once or twice, but I find business calls me to Hazlemere next week.”

“Cor, d’you mean it, guv?” Peter burst forth. He had held his tongue admirably until now.

Thea turned her head to smile at the boy. “I’m so glad,” she said, then turned back to Roderick. “Will you...will you be gone long?” she added wistfully.

“A few days.” Was she going to miss him? Or was she only afraid that during his absence some problem would arise for which she needed his help?

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Chocolate brown, with apricot braiding, the severely cut habit was as becoming to Thea as Penny had envisaged it. Lord Stewart actually exclaimed in admiration as Thea descended the stairs. He seemed unable to drag his gaze from the spot where the apricot ostrich plume, curling around the small, neat hat, kissed her cheek.

It tickled, but she managed to restrain herself from twitching. “One must suffer in the cause of beauty,” Meg had told her sternly.

To spare her riding horseback through the busy streets. Lord Stewart had brought his phaeton to drive to Hyde Park. They met his groom there. Thea was charmed by the pretty strawberry roan mare he had provided for her. Confident after her practice sessions with Roderick, she accepted with aplomb the viscount’s help in mounting.

Though the day was fine for mid-November, the Park was far from crowded. At ease on the well-behaved mare, Thea reminisced about long-ago pony rides across the moors, where one had always to be wary of bogs and rabbit holes and sudden mists rolling in from the west. She amused Lord Stewart with vivid descriptions of the agony of taking a toss into a furze bush, and the relief of landing in springy heather.

“Miss Kilmore, how well you understand the pleasures and pains of childhood,” he said fervently when they were once more seated in the phaeton. “I respect you for considering your empathy with youthful sensibilities more important than preserving your dignity as a lady of fashion.”

Thea opened her mouth, then closed it again, unable to think of any suitable response. She ought to have known that talking freely to anyone but Roderick was a mistake. Nothing could be more undignified than falling off a horse into a gorse bush, even if it had happened a dozen years ago. In future. Lord Stewart would always picture her as a sad romp rather than an elegant, decorous lady.

What a shocking waste of her beautiful new habit!

On the other hand, he had indubitably expressed approval, of a sort. The possibility dawned on her that he was seeking not just a sympathetic ear, but a new mother for his children. He was actually considering her, Thea Kilmore, as a bride.

She hardly knew him! She hadn’t yet even sorted out how many children he had. In a quiet panic, she tried to concentrate on what he was saying now, something about the busy streets that required no answer, thank heaven. He was an undemanding, solicitous companion, but...

A street urchin ran up to the phaeton, threw something into her lap, and dashed away, disappearing into an alley. Thea caught the twist of paper as it slid down her skirts.

Lord Stewart frowned. “What is that? The lower classes become more impudent every day.”

Puzzled, Thea smoothed it. There was no superscription. She unfolded the sheet and silently read the impatient scrawl: “Tell my niece I need five thousand guineas and she will be sorry if I dont get it.”

No names, nothing to incriminate the sender, but she knew at once that Mr. Vaughn had penned the demand, and the threat. She shivered.

“Miss Kilmore, what is it?”

“Nothing. A...a childish prank, I daresay.” Wadding the paper into a ball, she unconsciously began to tear it into little pieces with nervous fingers. To tell Lord Stewart would solve nothing. She refused to upset Penny. Jason could do nothing if he knew, since Mr. Vaughn had given no direction, no instructions for paying the money.

All she wanted to do was run to Roderick, but he was at Hazlemere. The burden was hers alone.

* * * *

That night the image of Mr. Vaughn’s hulking menace, fist raised, kept her awake for hours. When at last drowsiness overcame fear, memory conjured up Roderick’s arms about her. His gentle strength enfolded her as he held her close with murmured words of comfort. As she drifted into fantasy, his words grew tender and passionate, his blue eyes glowed as they had that windy day in St. James’s Park, when she thought he was going to kiss her...

But in the morning she was alone again, with Mr. Vaughn’s note an ominous weight on her mind.

As days passed and no more was heard of him, she began to hope the threat was an empty gesture. She decided not to mention it to Roderick when he returned from Buckinghamshire. To trouble him with her vague fears could only confirm his view of her as a weak, dependent creature thrown into high fidgets by the least little problem. In view of the strange method of delivery, perhaps the paper had not been meant for Penny after all, and its appropriate message was a coincidence.