“How do you do,” Meggie said in another’s voice as the real Meggie lay there beneath Eleanor’s hooves, mortally wounded. Both parts of her wished the heavens would burst open, right this instant, and every fat cloud would dump every ounce of rain until she drowned in it. No, until that damnable young lady named Charlotte drowned in it.
“I am very fine, thank you, Miss Sherbrooke,” said the young lady. She grinned toward Jeremy and lightly tapped her riding crop to his sleeve. “I have told Jeremy that he comes from such a distinguished family. His uncle Douglas is known by simply everyone, you know. I believe your father is the vicar who is also Baron Barthwick of Kildrummy, is that right, Miss Sherbrooke?”
“Yes,” Meggie said, and hated Charlotte Beresford all the way to the soles of her lovely pale gray boots, that perfectly matched her riding gown and that damned artful little hat she wore.
“I have been told that your other uncle, Mr. Ryder Sherbrooke, Jeremy’s brother-in-law, has even taken a seat in the House of Commons. So quaint for a younger son, don’t you think?”
“Not quaint at all,” Meggie said.
Jeremy, who was looking a bit puzzled, hastened to say in the abrupt silence, “My brother-in-law hates to see children abused. He works tirelessly to abolish child labor.”
Charlotte said, “I am eager to meet him. You and I haven’t spoken of it, but I must say that I feel the same way. It makes one want to weep to think of the poor little ones forced to work at looms for untold hours on end.” She nodded to Jeremy but continued to Meggie, “Jeremy is taking me to Chadwyck House next week to meet his sister and his brother-in-law. And also to Brandon House to meet all the Beloved Ones.”
Meggie wished Charlotte would shut her lovely pink-lipped mouth, particularly since everything that had emerged was filled with kindness and charm.
Damn the woman.
She was Jeremy’s betrothed.
“Meggie,” Jeremy said now, pulling his gelding in beside Eleanor and motioning Charlotte to pull into the other side of her, “Shall we ride now? You and I can talk about your wild and fractious childhood tonight.” He paused, patted her hand. “I wanted you so much to meet Charlotte.”
“How very thoughtful of you, Jeremy,” Meggie said, that distant Meggie, not the Meggie who lay in pieces on the ground. When it began to rain a few minutes later, she didn’t even blink, just smiled at Jeremy, at Charlotte, and said, “It is too inclement to ride. Goodbye.”
“Until this evening,” Jeremy called after her. She didn’t look back. Her beautiful new riding habit was wet, her riding hat quite ruined, when she finally walked into the Sherbrooke town house. Darby took one look at her and shouted, “My lady!”
When Alex came out of the library to see Meggie standing there, dripping on the beautiful marble entrance hall, she knew something very bad had happened. Not being a dolt, she knew it had to do with Jeremy Stanton-Greville.
Meggie didn’t want to see either Jeremy or Charlotte again, actually, for the rest of her life. No, just Charlotte.
She’d loved him for so long. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t particularly thought about him for years at a time, all the feelings she’d birthed for him so long ago, had just remained dormant, waiting for her to grow up, waiting to burst into bloom when she was ready to take a husband. And there he’d been. As if Fate had plunked him right down in front of her.
Only he hadn’t waited for her.
At that moment she decided she would never again look at a man with anything resembling liking. She would become the premier cat trainer in the entire sport. She would devote her life to the cats and to her parents and brothers. That gave her a bit of a pause. No, it would work. It would be fine. Perhaps when Lady Dauntry retired, she would mount the dais at the McCaulty racetrack and shout, “Free the Cats!”
She dressed beautifully for dinner. She knew even before she stood in front of her dressing table, ready for company, that she couldn’t possibly look finer than she did at this moment. She gave herself a ghastly smile in her mirror. Timma, Aunt Alex’s maid, said from behind her, “The pale pink, it is delightful on you, Miss Sherbrooke.”
“Thank you, Timma.”
“And your lovely hair, I have done an excellent job arranging it, just so.” Timma snapped her fingers.
Meggie tried for a smile, but couldn’t find one. “Thank you, Timma.”
When she went downstairs, Darby was there, as if he’d been waiting specifically for her, she thought, which he had, and allowed him to lead her into the drawing room.
Jeremy Stanton-Greville and Miss Charlotte Beresford were there. Uncle Douglas, unbeknownst to her, had invited him to dinner. Jeremy saw her and immediately jumped to his feet. He said as he walked quickly to her, “You are not thirteen years old any longer, Meggie.” He kissed her hand, hugged her, then stepped back. “You look quite beautiful.”
“Thank you, Jeremy.”
But she saw that his eyes couldn’t even remain on her face for more than an instant, perhaps two, before swinging back to Charlotte, who looked like a princess, sitting there, her lovely dark blue silk skirts fanned out around her, her décolletage not comparing to Aunt Alex’s, but still, all that young very white flesh on display would make a man bite his tongue before swallowing it.
She nodded toward Charlotte. “Good evening, Miss Beresford.”
Charlotte trilled a laugh. “Come now, we will soon be related. Do call me Charlotte.”
Meggie couldn’t say, “No, you miserable hussy with your big breasts, I would like to shoot an arrow through your heart.” So she merely smiled and nodded. “No, we won’t be related. Jeremy is not a blood cousin,” she said and turned her full and complete attention to her aunt and uncle.
Meggie didn’t remember much of the evening when she rode Eleanor the following morning with her aunt and uncle. She wasn’t remembering much of this, either. She kept her head down close to Eleanor’s sleek brown neck and let the wind rip through her hair.
She wanted to go home but knew she couldn’t. It would distress her father and Mary Rose, and Uncle Douglas and Aunt Alex, particularly since they’d been so delighted to present her. They’d gone to so much trouble, smoothing her way, ensuring that she would have a grand time during her first Season. And the very worst was that they would also know what had happened and Meggie didn’t think she would ever live that down. So she would remain and she would enjoy her Season. Blessed hell, she would enjoy every moment of the next two months.
She bit her lip to keep from crying. She would never cry for any man again.
She didn’t believe her aunt and uncle realized her feelings for Jeremy, which made her profoundly grateful that she hadn’t said anything. She had to be merry, laugh, tell them how very much fun she was having. Meggie wanted to howl to the ever-present bloated gray clouds overhead.
Meggie Sherbrooke was declared an original that Season of 1823. She was the most sought-after young lady in all that crop of debutantes, and feted until she should have been heady from her success, and become quite conceited. Her admirers were legion—that was the ridiculous word Meggie had heard Lady Ranleigh say about the gentlemen who never gave her peace, and she would have laughed, if she’d cared one little bit, but she didn’t.
Uncle Douglas received four offers of marriage, each of them from excellent gentlemen, and each he discussed with Meggie. If any had interested her, then he would have sent the young man she’d selected to go see Tysen, but Meggie just shook her head when he presented them to her.
“Lord Marcham’s son, Lancelot, is quite unexceptionable, Meggie, and appears quite taken with you. He really cannot help his unfortunate name.”
“No, thank you, Uncle Douglas,” she said, and that was that, similar words used to decline each of the other offers.
Douglas wrote to Tysen and Mary Rose at least once a week, his early letters filled with Meggie’s successes, then they were filled with Meggie’s disinterest in any of the gentlemen who praised her very nice Sh
erbrooke blue eyes, her lovely Sherbrooke hair, her somewhat distracted wit.
Reverend Tysen and Mary Rose arrived in London the final week of May, both of them very worried.
Meggie leaned against her father, felt his hands lightly stroking her back, up and down, and it felt so very comforting, and she whispered against his neck, “Please, Papa, I want to go home.”
He loosed his hold and held her in the circle of his arms. “You met a man who did not return your affections. I’m very sorry about that.” That was all he said, nothing more, and Meggie wondered how he could know. She prayed he wouldn’t ever find out which man she’d wanted who didn’t want her.
“Perhaps so,” she said. “Papa, I want to go home.”
“All right, love. Let us show Mary Rose some of the sights, just a week—she loves the theatre, you know—and then we will go home.”
On June second the Sherbrookes returned to Glenclose-on-Rowan to the vicarage.
In October every Sherbrooke in England traveled to Eagle’s Chase, in Somerset, the Beresfords’ country estate, to attend the wedding of Charlotte Beresford and Jeremy Stanton-Greville.
It was carried off in grand style. Every Beloved One was there, and to everyone’s amusement, all fifteen of the children applauded when the vicar said Jeremy could kiss his bride.
5
March 1824
Glenclose-on-Rowen
MEGGIE SHERBROOKE WALKED out of the church in the wake of her stepmother, Mary Rose Sherbrooke, Alec on her left side and Rory on her right side, holding her hand. She pulled him back so they could take their place in the vicar’s receiving line. Rory’s little arm was dry, his face flushed with joy and health, thank God. Just his hands were sticky.
It was a difficult time for the town. Three children had died of a fever during the past week, the cause unknown, and all three funerals had taken place at the same time, three days before. Tysen had spent a great deal of his time with the grieving parents. And today, Sunday morning, every parent was worried sick. They’d all come to church today because they needed reassurance. Her father’s sermon had been both moving and practical, which had brought every parent in the congregation a measure of peace and a sense of control, which was desperately needed.
He’d said in his deep, reaching voice, “I know that all of you are afraid that your own children will be struck down. I know that I look at my own boys and pray devoutly that God will spare them. Then I realized that I am not helpless in this, that God has given me a brain and good measure of common sense and the determination to face what I must. Naturally I, as well as you, want to guard my children as best I can. I have spoken at length with Dr. Dreyfus. He believes that we must all be vigilant, that the fever could strike again. He wants us all to keep our children at home during this next week, keep them warm and calm and quiet. They will probably grow bored and you will want to strangle them, but you must endure.” He smiled as there was a bit of laughter from his congregation. “I would only add that we must pray to God that it will be enough.
“God has given us all the strength, the fortitude, the ability to face illness, to face death, when need be. None of us are alone in this. Dr. Dreyfus will be visiting each family beginning this afternoon, to examine each child. As a congregation, as a town, we will survive this.”
His closing prayer had made Meggie’s heart ache and gave her a measure of hope.
The congregation spoke in low voices as they passed the vicar and his family, who stood in a line, shaking everyone’s hand as they passed, and patted each child.
Leo was home for several days, down from Oxford to visit with his family for the first time in over two months. He was still horse mad and he had plans to join his cousin Jeremy Stanton-Greville at his racing stud in Fowey, to learn the business, which, Jeremy had written, put them in a somewhat unusual situation, since he was still learning the business as well. Leo had also told them that Jeremy’s wife, Charlotte, was expecting Jeremy’s heir.
Meggie had said nothing upon hearing that. Nor did she say anything about her brother’s plans, not that Leo had asked her for her opinion.
As for Max Sherbrooke, their Latin scholar, who had finally surpassed his stepmother in his knowledge of everyday Latin, he’d announced that he planned to become a man of the cloth, like his father. There was, Tysen said, and blessedly so, a very big difference between father and son—Max brought laughter into the room with him, just like his uncle Ryder, and laughter was a wonderful thing, only discovered by Tysen after he’d met Mary Rose. Tysen was very pleased, knowing his son would bring joy to his future congregation from his very first sermon.
Meggie looked up at the sound of a stranger’s voice, a man’s voice that she’d never before heard, and she saw that indeed, she had never seen him before either. He was young, perhaps in his mid-twenties, and he was tall, taller than her father, possibly as tall as Uncle Douglas, and he was dark as a bandit on a midnight raid, dark hair, dark eyes, his complexion swarthy. There was no question that he’d spent a lot of his recent time at sea.
He was also taller and darker than Jeremy, whose wife was going to have a baby. No, no, put away that lump full of pain.
Rory tugged on her skirt. She looked down to see him holding the remains of a stick of candy Mary Rose had given him to keep him quiet during his father’s sermon in his left hand, no longer in his right, as was always the instruction from his mother. His left hand was now as sticky as his right hand and now so was the skirt of her beautiful new gown.
“Oh, no. Rory, just look at my skirt. How could you?”
Rory shook his head, big eyes ready to weep. He whispered that he didn’t know how he could have done that. He began frantically sucking his fingers, saying between his fingers and licks, “I’m sorry, Meggie,” then he gripped her skirt and brought it to his mouth. He began sucking hard on the sticky material.
Meggie couldn’t help herself. Her irritation with him evaporated. She burst into laughter, swung Rory up in her arms, and said, “You little sweetheart, how can I ever be upset with you when you are so cute?”
“I wonder,” the man said slowly, his voice pensive, looking at her directly now, “if my mother ever held me like that and told me I was a sweetheart and cute. Somehow, I doubt it.”
Meggie turned, still laughing, and said, “I’m not his mother and that, I believe, saves his adorable self from a hiding.”
Tysen said easily, “Lord Lancaster, this is my daughter, Meggie, and one of my sons, Rory. The candy does work to keep him quiet during the service, but occasionally he forgets, and this is the result. Meggie, my dear, this is Lord Lancaster. He has just returned to England to assume his responsibilities and see to his property.”
“Oh,” Meggie said, “Lord Lancaster—how odd that sounds. Your father was an old man, you see, and quite deaf toward the end of his life. I am sorry that your father died, my lord.” She paused a moment, and added as she hugged Rory closer, “However, he died some seven months ago, and you weren’t here then.”
“No, I was not.”
And no explanation forthcoming, she thought, because it was none of her business. He’d put her very nicely in her place. But it was strange nonetheless. She’d never even heard Lord Lancaster himself mention that he had a son, although she remembered now that there had been an occasional mention of an heir by a servant. To the best of her knowledge, the new Lord Lancaster had never even lived with his father at Bowden Close. It was a pity that such things happened in families.
“Welcome home, my lord,” she said, gave him an absent nod, and carried Rory away, back to the vicarage, Rory’s mother on his other side, wiping his hands with a handkerchief dampened from the well that stood on the edge of the cemetery. When Old Lord Lancaster had finally shucked off his mortal coil, a heart seizure Dr. Dreyfus had said, Meggie had mourned him perfunctorily since she’d known him all her life. Why, she wondered, had the son never visited his father?
She turned her attention back to Rory, whose
mother was playing hide-and-seek between his now clean fingers. She chanced to turn around some twenty steps later to see Lord Lancaster standing quite still, his arms folded over his chest, staring after her.
He was tall, she thought again, and darker than a moonless night, and there was an edge to that darkness of his. It was as if he were seeing all them clearly but he himself was masked, hiding in the shadows. She was succumbing to fancies, not a very appealing thing for a lady who would doubtless become the village spinster.
Meggie saw Thomas Malcombe, Lord Lancaster, again the following Friday evening when the Strapthorpes held a small musical soir-ée—pronounced quite in the French way—the name Mrs. Sturbridge stubbornly held to despite her spouse’s contempt.
Mrs. Strapthorpe, far more voluble now that her daughter, Glenda, had married and left home, immediately pulled Mary Rose and Meggie aside and said in a rush, bristling with complacency and pride, “He doesn’t accept invitations, Mrs. Bittley told me, a recluse he is, she assured me, possibly he’s now ashamed he never visited his dear father in a good twenty years. Some folk remember a little boy and Lady Lancaster, but they were both gone very quickly.” She lowered her voice. “I heard it said that the earl divorced his wife. What do you think of that? But now this splendid young man—an earl—is here, at my invitation, because, and so I told Mr. Strapthorpe, I wrote an ever-so-elegant note to him and he accepted my invitation with an ever-so-elegant note of his own—ah, his hand is quite refined, let me assure you—and now Lord Lancaster is coming, can you imagine? Yes, I snagged him. He is ever so handsome and obviously quite proud. No, don’t mistake me, he isn’t at all standoffish, he simply knows his own worth and expects others to know it, too. Yes, he is coming and I believe it is because of my elegant invitation and my brilliant idea to hold a musical soir-ée. A gentleman of his distinction would most assuredly be drawn to an elegant offering. Yes, this evening is tailor-made for his tastes. I have brought in a soprano, all the way from Bath—she last performed at Lord Laver’s magnificent town house on the Royal Crescent—and she strikes a high C with great regularity and astounding verve. Such a pity Glenda is wed and far away, and only to a viscount, more’s the pity, but she wouldn’t wait, particularly since our dear Reverend Sherbrooke was gobbled right up by dear Mary Rose, so there it is. Of course she couldn’t have waited for Lord Lancaster since she is nearly his own age, because, for a lady, unmarried at such an advanced age would announce to the world that there were serious problems with either her father’s purse or her face.”