Captain Langthorne's Proposal
‘The Dowager is ill and my sister-in-law in an interesting condition, Sir Adam,’ she replied, and told herself that ‘wraith’ was a gross exaggeration of her natural slenderness. She tried not to stare down at her person as if checking for too much skin and bone.
‘Since the other Ladies Summerton spend their time lying on sofas countermanding one another’s orders, it would do them a great deal of good to exert themselves now and again before the furniture collapses under their indolence,’ he observed sardonically, as if he had no idea why she was frowning down at her faded morning gown as if she had never seen it before.
If he dared to mock her preoccupation with his suggestion she was too thin she would turn on her heel and walk away, Mrs Burgess or no Mrs Burgess. Anyway, the Burgesses were Sir Adam’s tenants, and not Henry’s, so why she was here in the first place was beyond her. Tradition, the Dowager had claimed, since Burgess’s mother had been head housemaid up at the Hall, and at Windham tradition was everything.
‘It would do them both good to be more active,’ he went on, either oblivious to her frown or indifferent to it. ‘Then you could find a better use for your time.’
‘I’m happy as I am,’ she told him, dangerous ground shifting under her feet as a possible alternative presented itself.
‘No, you’re not unhappy,’ he insisted. ‘Which is a vastly different state from being truly happy. You spend your life waiting for the party to start.’
‘I have no liking for parties,’ she told him crossly.
Was he about to make her a very improper suggestion that she should spend lots of time lying about on the furniture with him, somewhere louche and forbidden? Or an honourable offer of marriage? Not to be thought of, she decided, impatient with herself for even momentarily lingering on the image of herself as a sinful houri, much too available for a gentleman’s pleasure, or an active and much appreciated wife. According to George she’d had no talent for either position and, considering how mistaken she had been about their marriage, she would be twenty times a fool to contemplate another—even if Sir Adam were ever so willing to put his head in the parson’s mousetrap, which she very much doubted from the slightly feral gleam in his eyes just at the moment.
‘Only because you lack the nerve to enjoy them,’ he told her inexcusably. ‘I’ve watched you sitting with the chaperones nobody else has the time or inclination to bother with, and playing the piano for the so-called “young people” to dance to. What happened to the eager young girl you used to be? The one I recall whispering mischief with my sister when you were schoolgirls together, and refusing to be awed by any threat or stratagem I could think up to keep you in line before you landed yourself and Rachel in Newgate? You do your best to fade into the furniture, and people have the devil of a job recalling if you were even at the few social engagements you attend. When you made your debuts my sister used to write about your mutual misdeeds so joyfully that I could tell you were doing her a great deal of good. Where did the headlong miss who danced every dance on her card and still found the energy to drive herself about the town in her own curricle and pair the next day and set the tabbies by the ears get off to, my lady?’
‘None of your business,’ she told him shortly, and glared at him as she wrestled for possession of her hand in a most unladylike fashion, winning at last only because she knew he would never knowingly hurt her.
‘Rachel’s letters used to come alive with the misdeeds the two of you perpetrated,’ he continued relentlessly. ‘Despite her terrible grief when poor Tom Hollard died, I thought such a lively neighbour would cheer her in time. Instead my sister is intent on becoming an antidote, and if the pair of you went to town for the season, I dare say you’d only attend Blue Stocking soirees and church.’
‘That we shouldn’t. We’d dance ’til dawn to prove you wrong, Sir Adam, even if we wore our poor feet raw,’ she snapped. ‘You should thank your stars we’re so conventional nowadays.’
‘Never!’ he vowed, and there was no mistaking the resolution in his steadfast gaze now, even if it did seem very different from the one she’d thought. ‘You might be happy to watch Rachel dwindle into a reclusive old maid who’ll soon start breeding lapdogs, but I’m not. I want the eager young woman Rachel was before Tom died back, and you’re going to help me.’
‘Even though you just pointed out how staid I am?’ she asked coldly.
‘You think this good enough for my sister? This not unhappy state you have fallen into as if you were both four and sixty instead of four and twenty? Well, I think it only half a life. Yes, Rachel suffered a terrible tragedy, and you endured an unhappy marriage, but life didn’t stop because of it.’
‘My marriage is none of your business,’ she informed him very stiffly, as she did her best to retrieve her hand once more from the firm, warm clasp he had taken it in while she was preoccupied with his incendiary words.
He obviously despised her for losing the reckless spirit she had faced life with once upon a time. Just as well she didn’t need his approval nor want it. No longer being the thoughtless creature he had contrarily admired, she checked her temper, unclenched her teeth and forced herself to consider his words. Was this life enough? Not for her—she had taken her gamble on life and lost—but for Rachel?
‘You know Rachel loved Lieutenant Hollard very deeply,’ she said carefully, despising herself for the hesitant words issuing from her own lips.
‘You mean to warn me that my sister’s feelings run deep, my lady?’ he asked more gently.
She marvelled that he could go so quickly from stern commander to gentleman, whose reassuring presence invited confidence. And why was it that when he called her ‘my lady’ like that it suddenly seemed more like a promise than a rather archaic form of address? For a moment it seemed the most natural thing in the world to unburden herself, but then she decided it was a useful trick developed after years commanding troops.
‘Rachel may have put a brave face on her grief in her letters to you, but she was devastated when Lieutenant Hollard was killed.’
‘I read between the lines. But she was nineteen when Tom Hollard went down with his ship, and he would not have wanted her to wear the willow.’
‘Rachel could never cast his memory aside,’ Serena said with a frown. Yet at least Rachel had the lodestone of true love to measure her feelings against. So, yes, perhaps she could be happy with another man.
‘Tom wouldn’t want this state of not quite content for her,’ he said, with a flash of something in his golden-brown eyes that she couldn’t read. ‘It’s time my sister had another chance, Lady Summerton. Are you friend enough to help her take it?’
‘She’ll have my unflagging support once I’m convinced it’s for the best,’ she said, ‘but Rachel didn’t enjoy her debut very much.’
‘No, and she’s a stubborn minx,’ Sir Adam agreed philosophically. ‘But although she can’t be pushed she can be led—if one goes about it the right way.’
‘Which is?’ she asked, offended by the idea of his manipulating her friend, even with the best of intentions.
‘You sound every inch a countess when you put on that cut-glass voice and look down your inadequate nose at me, my dear.’
‘I’m not your dear, and it’s a perfectly good nose,’ she exclaimed, then frowned at him for provoking such childishness.
‘It is a perfect little nose—just not very well suited to looking down,’ he replied outrageously.
Serena wondered how Rachel had resisted the urge to murder him when they were in their nursery, for he must have been the most exasperating of brothers then, however considerate he was now. ‘My nose is irrelevant, Sir Adam, and if you’re so worried, why don’t you do something about it?’
‘What? Your nose? I like it very well as it is,’ he replied with an infuriating grin.
‘How flattering. But unfortunately your opinion of myself and my features is a matter of indifference to me. Confine yourself to your sister’s affairs,’ she informed him with frigid dignity.
‘She doesn’t have any,’ he informed her unrepentantly.
‘Something most brothers would be profoundly grateful for.’
‘I knew you hadn’t really become missish in your old age, Lady Summerton,’ he said, with every appearance of satisfaction.
Recognising his tactic of infuriating her to the point of indiscretion, she took a very deep breath and counted to ten. ‘Either stick to the subject in hand, Sir Adam, or I’ll drop my basket on your toe,’ she informed him coolly.
‘It’s really is most ungallant of me not to be carrying it in the first place. Whatever will Mrs Burgess say?’
‘I don’t care a straw what the wretched woman says. Give it back,’ she demanded, as he whisked the offending article out of her hand and put it on the grass at his side.
‘No. Now, stop distracting me and stick to our sheep,’ he goaded her, that wicked, compelling smile warming his gaze once more.
‘Pot calling kettle black, Sir Adam? You’re the one whose attention keeps wandering from the subject under discussion.’
‘With very good reason,’ he said with apparent satisfaction as his gaze dwelt on her animated face.
‘For no reason at all, so far as I can see,’ she countered smartly. Only to be confounded as he raised his eyebrows and gave her another of those warmly approving looks.
‘No,’ he replied softly, ‘I dare say you can’t.’
‘Oh, pray stop treating me like an idiot, and tell me how you plan to get Rachel to change her mind about marriage?’ she demanded impatiently.
Wrongfoot her and charm her as he would, she refused to succumb to the potent spell of a tall and handsome gentleman blessed with a wicked sense of humour and a very astute mind. Then there was his strength and integrity—qualities that would outlive mere bodily vigour, she reminded herself distractedly.
‘Very well, then, I shall take her to town—suitably chaperoned, of course.’
As his intent gaze fixed on her, Serena could hardly mistake the chaperon he had in mind. So that was why he had been conspiring to get her alone for so long. It was all she could do not to stamp her feet and fall into strong hysterics. All this time she had avoided him and he wanted her to chaperon his sister! She was delighted not to have to refuse a discreet affair between two untrammelled adults, of course, and need no longer call on Rachel when he was out. Except if he had his way she wouldn’t need to call on Rachel. She would be living with her.
Chapter Two
Serena had decided years ago that not even Sir Charles Grandison and brave young Lochinvar rolled into one dashingly perfect gentleman could persuade her to marry again. Not that Sir Adam had marriage in mind. No, even if he had been attempting to get her alone, he had a very different proposition to make her. Anyway, although he looked like a hero, Sir Adam Langthorne would probably tell a damsel in distress to pull herself together and fight her own dragons before he rode to her rescue. For some reason that sounded a wickedly tempting combination in a suitor, so it was just as well he had no intention of courting her.
‘That chaperon certainly won’t be me,’ she snapped, taken by surprise both by his determination to turn her into Rachel’s duenna and her own unwavering opposition.
Half an hour ago she might have found the idea of being removed from her monotonous routine and a distinctly unpromising future alluring—and in Rachel’s company as well. So why was she about to refuse such an escape from her responsibilities?
‘I should wait to be asked if I were you, my lady,’ he reproved, that infuriating smile once again making her palm itch to slap it off his lips.
‘I still won’t do it,’ she insisted implacably.
‘Well, that settles that, then,’ he said. And if he was trying to appear cast down he was failing dismally.
The wretched man was confident of getting his way; she could see it by the unwavering determination of his firm mouth and his golden-brown eyes had a glint in them she deeply mistrusted.
‘Unlucky Rachel, to possess such a fair weather friend,’ he said mournfully, and this time her wrist actually swung out before she sharply ordered it back to her side, and glared at him with infuriated ferocity instead.
‘We have no need to prove our friendship, sir, so I suggest you save your tricks for those who might be taken in by them,’ she told him, with a glare that should tell him she was too polite to say what she really felt about his stubborn aim of getting his own way, whatever the consequences.
‘If I ever find another lady so perfectly suited to bear my sister company I shall seek your advice,’ he said blandly, and she could see no lessening of his iron resolve whatsoever. ‘I’m determined to turn her thoughts into more hopeful channels, and she trusts you, my lady,’ he insisted relentlessly. ‘Rachel won’t put her confidence in a stranger.’
‘Perhaps, but she needs someone older to reintroduce her to the ton,’ she countered.
‘Indeed,’ he agreed meekly. ‘But such a hardened cynic might misjudge my sister and try to shuffle her onto someone rich and titled but totally unsuitable in every other way, don’t you think? While Rachel’s capable of fending off such an insensitive soul herself, it would probably ruin her stay, and you would let her pick out her own suitors.’
‘Rachel’s chaperon will be in for a surprise if you let her expect meek agreement with her every whim,’ Serena persisted.
‘No, she won’t. You know her too well for that.’ He held up his hand when she gathered breath to condemn his high-handed assumption that she would agree to his scheme. ‘I don’t want Rachel to be upset by battling over every detail from the cut and colour of her gown to how many steps she can take in the park with a beau without causing a scandal. Together you can both ease yourselves back into the polite world and actually enjoy yourselves,’ he replied, so reasonably that Serena had to remind herself she was in danger of being manipulated by a master.
‘I refuse to tell my best friend how to run her life,’ she said doggedly.
‘Little chance of that—which is why this arrangement will suit so well, if I can bring it about,’ he said with a wry smile.
‘Do you always arrange the lives of your family and friends in the way you feel is most likely to do them good, Sir Adam?’
‘Whenever I can,’ he replied, with an unrepentant shrug.
‘Lord, how I pity them.’
‘Lady, you have no need to,’ he told her, and suddenly there was an infinity of promises in those intriguing eyes of his, and she felt a shiver run down her spine that had to be apprehension—didn’t it?
‘So you say,’ she managed to reply, steadily enough.
‘So I know,’ he said quietly, and this time there was a steadfast intent in his gaze that worried her more than anything that had passed between them so far.
Serena made a determined effort to put everything else aside and concentrate on Rachel’s well-being. ‘I’m not sure I could stop the staidest two-in-hand racing out of control,’ she admitted ruefully, ‘let alone keep Rachel from being overwhelmed by unsuitable gentlemen.’
Rachel Langthorne was a considerable heiress and, even if she was far too shrewd to fall for a fortune-hunter, would find the ton at play intimidating after so long at Marclecombe, caring for her grandparents and more lately her ungrateful brother. For Rachel’s sake Serena supposed she had to take this idea seriously, even if going to London for the season in Sir Adam’s company was the last thing she should do if she had any sense at all.
‘You’d soon get back into the way of it,’ he said with remarkable gentleness. And Serena didn’t make the mistake of thinking he was referring to driving a pair of spirited Welsh greys around Hyde Park.
‘Not if I stay here, I won’t,’ she replied stubbornly.
‘Faint heart,’ he accused her lightly, as if he was supremely confident she would see things his way if he persisted long enough.
‘If you like,’ she told him steadily, striving for the appearance of indifference, even if she couldn’t quite manage the fact.
‘I’m not one to meekly give up on an enterprise likely to succeed so well, Lady Summerton,’ he warned her, with a mildness she refused to mistake for wavering of purpose—he was altogether too dangerous to her peace of mind for such leeway.
‘And that enterprise is?’ she demanded frostily.
He had the effrontery to laugh at her imitation of an affronted aristocrat before sobering. ‘My sister’s future happiness, of course,’ he told her seriously. An underhand statement if ever she’d heard one—for how could she argue with such a motive?
‘I’m not convinced going to London would enhance it,’ she argued stubbornly.
‘We’ll see who’s right when we get there, then.’
‘No, for I’m staying here, remember?’
‘Of course,’ he agreed, with a smug smile that was enough to try the most patient of saints as they approached Burgesses’ rather perfunctory front garden at last, and Serena was forced to swallow a less than polite reply.
‘Oh, my lady and Sir Adam—what a pleasure to see you both,’ Mrs Burgess declared rather breathlessly as she bustled out of the front door.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Burgess, and how are you today?’
‘None too stout, I fear, Lady Summerton.’ The worthy lady faltered, and Serena sent Sir Adam a reproving look when she saw his broad shoulders shake—for Mrs Burgess was very far from slender after her many pregnancies.
‘I’m very sorry to hear it. Perhaps we could all take a glass of your delicious cowslip wine while you tell us all about it, Mrs Burgess?’ said Serena.
Which would serve him right, she decided. The idea of Sir Adam Langthorne choking down this good lady’s home-made wine when he was reputed to have the finest cellar in the county made her long to laugh out loud.
‘None of that potent brew for me thank you, ma’am, I need to keep a clear head for whatever business your husband has with me,’ he informed their hostess with an engaging smile—the slippery rogue. ‘But there’s no reason you and her ladyship can’t have a comfortable coze before I see her home.’
‘I can find my own way, thank you, Sir Adam.’
‘Normally I’m sure you would, Lady Summerton, but after indulging in Mrs Burgess’s famous cowslip you might go astray. We can’t have her ladyship spending the night in a ditch, can we, Mrs Burgess?’
Serena might have been tempted to argue for the ditch if her hostess’s eager ears had not been taking in every word. Instead she sent Sir Adam a pallid smile that promised revenge, and allowed herself to be led into the parlour and fed plum cake and gossip while she cautiously sampled her wine. It really was quite pleasant, she decided, and she was thirsty. But when Mrs Burgess would have topped up her glass she managed to refuse.
‘I have no wish to become tipsy and prove Sir Adam right—delicious as this is, Mrs Burgess,’ she excused herself, and sipped gratefully at the cup of tea she was offered instead. ‘Now, tell me all about this ghost the sexton saw the other night. It sounds a most unlikely tale to me, and I can’t help but wonder if he hadn’t been at your excellent wine.’
‘I wouldn’t waste it on the likes of him,’ Mrs Burgess declared with a disgusted sniff. ‘That ne’er do well would drink the dregs out of the chalice of a Sunday if he could get hold of them. The drink has got to him well and truly at long last, and I dare say he’ll be found laid in one of his own graves one morning, stone-dead. I’ll believe in that there ghost when I set eyes on it and not before, my lady.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it, as all sorts of wild tales are doing the rounds. A voice against it is most welcome.’
If rather surprising, Serena added in her head. Mrs Burgess usually believed every wild rumour that went around, and added a few embellishments before passing them on. She had several times told Serena that the French were stealing Burgess’s turnips and the eggs from her hen-house, despite the fact that Red Bridge Farm was seventy miles from the sea.
‘And that daft besom he’s married to has spread tales as would make your hair curl,’ Mrs Burgess went on indignantly.
‘Has she indeed?’
‘Said this ghost of his rose up out of the Canderton vault and that Lady Canderton was walking, she did, my lady. I told her sharpish that my old mistress was as respectable a woman as ever walked God’s good earth. She would no more come back to haunt us than the King himself would—if he was dead, of course, which he ain’t. Might just as well be, the poor mad soul, but that’s neither here nor there. I’m not having that baggage putting it about that my poor late lady’s unquiet in her grave, for she was as decent a woman as you could find in the whole of England.’
Serena vaguely remembered hearing Mrs Burgess had been in service before she’d wed. The family had died out with Sir William Canderton’s death twenty years before, just a few months after his formidable mother went to her own eternal rest. The land had been sold off to pay wild Sir William’s debts, and the ancient house demolished as a danger to anyone rash enough to venture inside its rotten shell.
Mrs Burgess was probably the only one who cared if the Candertons were at peace or not, and that seemed rather sad. Serena set herself to soothe her with such a liberal helping of sympathy and flattery that by the time Sir Adam reappeared her head was reeling with our Liza’s hives, the shocking price Mrs Burgess’s remaining eggs had fetched at market, and the French spies who were ruining the country from within.
‘You should have kept on with the wine,’ her escort informed her unsympathetically when they finally got away from the voluble farmer’s wife. ‘No doubt the infernal woman talked you into a headache anyway. More alcohol might have blurred her confounded rigmarole.’
‘I doubt I could keep sufficient guard on my tongue.’
‘There’s that, of course, but once she’s in full flow I doubt she hears what anyone else has to say.’
‘Probably not. But she was in a rare state over the rumour Wharton is putting about. I’ve never heard her as voluble as she was today.’
‘Whereas Burgess is as close mouthed as she is loose-tongued—which may explain why they go on so well together. He’s the ideal audience, and she saves him the effort of thinking of aught to say.’
‘So far as I can tell Mrs Burgess is upset that the sexton said he saw a ghost coming from the vault where her late mistress is laid. She takes offence that so virtuous and generous a mistress should be thought to trouble the living instead of staying respectably dead.’
‘I hope time will deal so well with my reputation after I’m gone, then. Lady Canderton was a complete tartar. They had the pew behind ours in church, and she used to clip me round the ear whenever she felt I wasn’t paying enough attention to the sermon. She once got me a fine beating for stealing cherries out of her kitchen garden as well.’
‘Deserved, I suspect,’ she said unsympathetically.
‘Rachel was the culprit. But maybe Lady Canderton thought I should take her punishment as I shared her booty.’
‘None of which gives reason for her ghost to walk. Indeed, it sounds like a mare’s nest to me, and I dare say Mrs Burgess is right.’
‘That seems unlikely. But about what?’
‘The sexton is addicted to the bottle—and not her cowslip wine neither, “for he ain’t worthy to so much as taste it.”’
‘Are you sure you didn’t have too much yourself?’ he asked, grinning at her imitation of the voluble woman.
‘Not nearly enough, I assure you, Sir Adam. Now our ways must diverge, as I need to see Janet Partridge and I doubt she wants to see a gentleman when she’s so near her time.’
‘I dare say you’re right, but I’ll escort you to her door nonetheless. Gadding about the countryside alone with all those light-fingered Frenchmen and restless ghosts running about is pure folly, my lady.’