Amanda Scott Read online

“And then a marquess offered for you.” Miranda sighed. “It is just like one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s tales. Dear Chalford.”

  “It was with the greatest astonishment that I learned of his offer,” Adriana said. “Alston informed me of it after I had met the man but four times, danced with him perhaps as many times, and talked to him for not more than half an hour altogether. And for the most part, I daresay I merely flirted as I always do, not making any effort to attach his affections, you know, for it never entered my head that a man of such rank and wealth would consider matrimony with a woman in my financial position. I said whatever it entered my head to say. He is a most comfortable man to talk to, that I will say for him. He listens with such a flattering air of attention, and though he rarely talks about himself, I remember once actually asking him what it was like to have enough money to do as one pleased.”

  “Adriana!” Sarah made no effort to conceal her amusement. “What did he say?”

  “That he didn’t suppose anyone ever had that much money because the more money one has, the more responsibilities one incurs and thus the less likely it is that one may do as one pleases.” Adriana sighed. “I hope he doesn’t prove to be as great a nickpenny as Alston has become. One expects wealthy men to live wealthily.”

  “But you must know how he means to go on,” Sarah said. “Surely, he has made arrangements for you.”

  “Oh, yes, the settlements.” She smiled tolerantly. “I had nothing to say to them, of course, and I am sure he has made me a most generous allowance to be getting along on at Thunderhill—well, Alston certainly thinks it generous, and he was impressed when Chalford refused to quibble over details and agreed to whatever he suggested—but Alston believes I ought to get along on pennies, and Chalford cannot realize how expensive London is, or Brighton. A marchioness has an image to present to the beau monde, after all, and I don’t intend to be remiss in my duty.”

  “Well, you will bring Chalford ’round your thumb in no time,” Miranda said. “You are very good at that sort of thing, Dree, having practiced so long with Orson and Papa, neither of whom is conciliating in the least, which Chalford appears to be. Moreover, if he did not quibble, it is because he desires you to have what you wish. I have seen the way your husband looks at you, my dear. If he is not besotted, he is very close to it. In any event, he will give you whatever you ask for.”

  Sarah frowned, and Adriana, catching her look in the mirror, said quickly, “I sound like a spoilt child, do I not?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Never that, my dear. To speak frankly, I think you are a little frightened of what lies ahead and trying hard to pretend that you are not. No, no, do not poker up. Remember, this is Sarah, who knows you well. Though I was in love with my husband, I was frightened about what lay ahead—and confused, too. You scarcely know Chalford, so your apprehension can only be greater than mine was. And your mother is not here to tell you how you should go on. Not,” she added with a laugh, “that mine was of any assistance to me. She only blushed and mumbled until I hugged her and told her I would learn what I must from dearest Mortimer.”

  “Here be your bonnet, m’lady,” said Nancy before Adriana could speak. Silently, she let the abigail settle the russet bonnet over her intricately twisted coiffure. The bow, however, she tied herself, under her right ear. Then, pulling on her tan gloves, she stood, shook out her skirts, let Nancy arrange her demitrain, and declared herself ready to go down to her husband.

  Miranda and Sarah both moved forward quickly to hug her, and Adriana found that she was blinking back as many tears as her abigail before she managed to get herself out the door. Once she reached the wide staircase leading down to the hall, however, she had herself well in hand again and nodded and smiled to the guests milling below, waiting to bid her farewell. Her gaze swept the crowd, then came to rest upon one particular gentleman standing at the very foot of the stairs.

  Joshua Blackburn, eleventh Marquess of Chalford, seemed somehow aloof from the excited group surrounding him. There was a coolness, a calmness that separated him from the others. He too had changed to clothing more suitable for travel, but he was precise to a pin in his buff breeches, black boots, and the snugly fitting dark-blue coat that seemed only to emphasize the powerful breadth of his shoulders and the narrowness of his waist and hips. One lock of dark hair had escaped the brush’s control to fall over his left temple, and his dark-gray eyes glinted with unmistakable approval when his gaze met Adriana’s. She smiled at him, then her gaze shifted quickly, scanning the group again, darting from one person to another as she smiled and nodded and continued to make her graceful descent.

  When she was close enough, Chalford held out his hand to her and she placed hers within it, grateful for the warmth of his grasp and the strength of his presence. The first time she had seen him, at Lady Sefton’s rout after the opening sessions of Parliament, she had assumed from the way he carried himself and the way he unconsciously drew the attention of everyone else in the room that he must be a man of wealth and power, and she had been surprised to learn that few of the women knew him at all. The men who knew him said only how much they liked him and what a pity it was that such a bruising rider to hounds passed so much of his life in such humbug country. Once she had made his acquaintance, she had learned quickly that he rarely talked about himself, which made the initial impact of his personality all the more incomprehensible to her.

  Now he smiled at her, and she smiled back, but before either of them could speak, Viscount Alston, beside the marquess, said in a sharp undertone, “What can have kept you so long, Adriana? We have all been waiting this half-hour and more.”

  She turned, automatically assuming a look of contrition. Then, suddenly, awareness struck her that she no longer had to answer to him, and she smiled. “Dearest Orson,” she said, gently emphasizing his name, delighted when the irritation in his expression sharpened to anger, “I wished to be certain nothing was amiss with my appearance on so important an occasion.”

  At Alston’s side, his plump, pink-satin-draped viscountess had been examining Adriana’s attire and now shook her head in disapproval, making the three purple ostrich plumes adorning her elaborate coiffure bob wildly. “I am surprised at you, Adriana,” she said. “Such a plain dress to choose, and no jewelry at all. Your mama left her personal jewels betwixt you and dear Miranda, did she not?” Without waiting for a reply, she added, “The pearls at least, I should have thought, and a ring or two more to deck your fingers. Not that the ring Chalford gave you is not exquisite, for of course it is.” She fluttered her sandy lashes at the marquess, then returned her gaze to Adriana, saying more brusquely, “You have a position to uphold, after all.”

  “Ah, Sophie, I can never glitter so well as you do,” Adriana replied gently. “I am but a drab moth beside a butterfly, and I know better than to attempt imitation.” She shot a mocking glance at her brother, enjoying herself but thinking, too, that it was as well she would not have to answer to him for that little barb. He was visibly fuming, but she knew he would never reprove her with Chalford at her side. Indeed, he would not wish Sophie to realize that what Adriana had said to her was not a compliment. His wife was very nearly preening herself.

  Behind her, Adriana heard a familiar chuckle, and though it was all but drowned out by the noise of the others in the hall, she knew she must divert her brother’s attention before he noted Miranda’s amusement. Accordingly, she smiled at Alston again and said sweetly, “Thank you for a lovely wedding, Orson dear.” Then, raising her voice above the din, she said, “Do, everyone, stay as long as you like. Alston and Sophie will be distressed if you do not, for there is food and drink to last all the day.”

  Cheers greeted her words, and she found her hand clasped more firmly than ever in her husband’s as he urged her toward the tall front doors, which swung wide at their approach. With more cheers and whistling, their friends and relatives made a path for them, then followed them out to the awaiting carriage.

  Chalford, grasping
Adriana by the waist, easily lifted her into the chaise, then leapt in behind her and signaled the postboys to horse. With a surge, the light, well-sprung vehicle leapt forward as he was latching the door, and Adriana’s last view of the merrymakers made her chuckle. Miranda and Sarah were waving and laughing, but Alston and his lady stood on the topmost step, both looking anxious and rather grim.

  Satisfied, the new marchioness leaned back against the squabs. “I hope everyone stays until dawn.”

  “You practically ordered them to do so, did you not?” was the calm response.

  She looked at him but she could read nothing in his expression that suggested disapproval. Nonetheless, she was moved to say apologetically, “It was not well done of me, I suppose, but Sophie has driven me wild with all her complaints about the expense. One moment she talks about candles at seven shillings the dozen, and the next she is insisting that there must be ten linkboys hired whether the guests stay on after dark or not—just on the chance that they will—or it will not look right. And how they can call it a wedding breakfast and serve six varieties of ices from Gunter’s, I cannot tell you, but Sophie insisted that it was the thing to do and Orson, for all his nipfarthing notions, never tells her she mustn’t do what she has set her heart upon doing.”

  “You called him Orson when you took leave of him,” said Chalford, “or I should not have realized you speak now of your brother. I’ve never heard him called anything but Alston.”

  Adriana grinned. “He detests being called Orson. Miranda and I have been forced to call him only by his title ever since the day I shouted at him that he ought to have been eaten by a bear.” Chalford looked puzzled, so she explained, “We are all named after characters in Shakespeare’s plays. I am from The Comedy of Errors, which my friend Sarah says is appropriate, and Miranda is the admired heroine of The Tempest, of course, while Orson is from Twelfth Night.”

  “I do not recall a scene in the play where Orsino is eaten by bears, however,” Chalford said, amused.

  “No, of course not, but years and years ago, I discovered on the shelf in our nursery an old child’s tale about a boy named Orson who was carried off by a bear and raised with her cubs. Because the character was actually called Orson, not Orsino in the Italian way, I said Mama must have got the name from the bear story, not the play. Then came the day when I said the mama bear ought to have eaten him, that I hoped one would someday. Miranda was scarcely more than a baby at the time, but she was like an echo, saying everything I said, and the two of us kept repeating that last refrain until he soundly boxed my ears and ordered us never again to call him anything but Alston. I have—in his presence, at any rate—obeyed him until today.”

  “Your farewell was a declaration of independence?”

  She glanced at him uncertainly. “In a way, I suppose it was. Have you any brothers or sisters, sir?”

  “One of each,” he replied, “and I must confess to you that my sympathies lie entirely with Alston.”

  “Were they there today? Although I know your parents to be deceased, I know little else about your family.”

  “Barring a few cousins, none of my family was there,” he said quietly. “My brother, Ned, is married to a Scottish lady and lives thirty miles north of Edinburgh. I think he would have come, had Molly not been expecting at any moment to be confined. My sister, Lydia, is also married. She wrote that she would have come to London had it not seemed foolish to do so when she had only just got home to Sussex, not knowing before she left that I intended to commit matrimony. She trusts you will forgive her and looks forward to meeting you once we are settled at home.”

  “If she lives in Sussex, perhaps we might visit her when we go to Brighton,” Adriana suggested.

  “Perhaps, but since we will not go to Brighton before Lydia comes to Thunderhill, as she generally does each September with all her offspring, you will meet her first at home.”

  “Not go to Brighton!” Adriana stared at him. “But of course we will go. Everyone is going to Brighton, if not for the races then certainly for the prince’s birthday celebration.”

  “Not everyone, my dear, for I do not, and nor will you. Your duties at Thunderhill will keep you entirely too busy.”

  2

  ADRIANA, HAVING SENSE ENOUGH not to debate the matter at once, turned to look out the window, for experience had taught her that when a gentleman took a notion into his head that ran contrary to her own wishes, she was generally wiser to approach the matter obliquely, rather than to confront it straight on. To argue with either her father or her brother was useless, served only, in fact, to set them to bellowing at her, but since she was accustomed to getting her own way in the end, even against such stiff opposition as theirs, she did not despair. Having spent too many years buried at Wryde before Alston could be coaxed into sponsoring her come-out, she had no intention of simply giving up the parties and amusements she had grown to love. She would do her duty gracefully as mistress of Thunderhill Castle, but its master must learn to cater a little to her wishes, too.

  The horses made little speed while wending their way out of Mayfair via Piccadilly, the Haymarket, and Whitehall, and even after the chaise crossed Westminster Bridge, there was still a great deal of traffic and four turnpikes to be negotiated before they turned onto the Maidstone Road. All the hustle and bustle was fascinating, however, so when Chalford announced quietly, as the chaise rattled across the Croydon Canal, that although they were but three and a half miles out of London, they were now in Kent, Adriana started a little at the sound of his voice.

  As they had passed through the Newcross tollgate but moments before, the tollkeeper had tipped his hat to her and winked, and she had grinned at him. Remembering this incident, she turned to face her new husband warily, suddenly conscious of the way he filled the chaise, aware that for the first time in her life she was shut into a small space with a man, other than her brother or father, to whom she was answerable for her every action. Looking at him now, it seemed impossible that she could have ignored him for seconds, let alone for half an hour. But surely that much time had elapsed since she had turned away in order not to shout her displeasure at his calm rejection of a sojourn in Brighton.

  Searching for a safe topic of conversation, she said, “I have not driven on this road before, sir, but I am given to understand that the Kent countryside is very beautiful.”

  “We think so,” he said.

  Reassured by his tone, she smiled. “‘We’ being the men of Kent, I daresay. I doubt you are a Kentish man.”

  He regarded her with a touch of sleepy amusement in his dark-gray eyes. “Do you actually know the difference between men of Kent and Kentish men, Adriana?”

  She bit her lower lip, gazing at him from beneath her thick, sable lashes, then answered carefully, “I believe it is merely a question of which side of the River Medway one claims as home. Men from the east are men and those from the west are Kentish.”

  He chuckled. “And maids from the east are maids, while those from the west are Kentish. Do you know the reason?”

  She shook her head, confessing, “I was not even certain I had the sides of the river correctly.”

  “The most generally accepted tale is that when William, Duke of Normandy, was marching on Dover after his victory at Hastings, some men came to welcome him, and in consequence, obtained from him a confirmation of certain ancient privileges. They called themselves ‘invicti,’ the unconquered, and they became known as the men of Kent. The others, who opposed the Conqueror, were pushed west of the Medway and came to be known as Kentish men.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “’Tis not nearly so old a tradition as I had thought, then. Only from those upstart Normans. I must tell you that Barrington roots are buried deep in the days of the Angles and Saxons, or so my father frequently boasts.”

  Chalford nodded. “Then you will prefer the legend that when Britain was divided into kingdoms, about the year 450, King Vortigern of Kent called upon the Saxon leaders Hengist and Horsa to
help him in his fight against the Picts and the Scots, which they did, but in the process a lot of Saxons who accompanied them remained in the area. Many of the Britons didn’t like the Saxons and retreated west, beyond the Medway, calling themselves Kentish men. Those remaining became known as men of Kent. Since Thunderhill is not so old as that, I prefer the first tale.”

  “Goodness,” exclaimed Adriana, “do you mean to say that Thunderhill dates from the days of the Conqueror? I hope there are carpets, and glass in the windows.”

  He smiled. “You will be comfortable, I believe, although part of the castle does indeed date from the eleventh century, when the Conqueror conferred the earldom of Côte de Tonnere on my ancestor, the Norman knight Simon de Tonnere. Simon was expected to help defend the south coast, of course, for the chalk spur on which the castle stands overlooks the Channel at a point where, in time of war, one must always anticipate possible attack from France. After Earl Simon built his castle, he and his descendants lived there uninterrupted for four hundred years.”

  Chalford’s attention was diverted just then, and he said, “Look to your right. We are passing through Eltham, and those are the ruins of an old palace belonging to Henry the Seventh. The great hall’s magnificently carved roof is in a particularly fine state of preservation even now.”

  Adriana eyed him with suspicion. “See here, Chalford, I hope you aren’t thinking of dragging me about to look at old ruins. We shall never reach Maidstone before dark if you do.”

  “Perhaps another day,” he said. “I’ve no wish to stop before Foot’s Cray. I’ve arranged for changes at every stage, but even so it will take the best part of four hours to reach Maidstone even if we don’t dally along the way.”

  “I heard that the Prince of Wales once drove all the way from London to Brighton in under four hours,” she said demurely.

  “His highness actually took ten hours to accomplish a journey from Carlton House to Brighton and back again. That was in ’84,” he told her, “and he rode; he didn’t drive. Three years later his record was broken by a certain Mr. Webster, who traveled from Westminster Bridge to Brighton on one of his own phaeton horses in three hours and twenty minutes. No one knows the fate of either horse, but if they survived, you may take my word for it that they must have suffered lasting injury. As I’ve no wish to kill any of my horses, we will travel more sedately.”