Barbara Metzger (17 page)

Delia had changed into her unrelieved black.

She was not surprised Gwen did not wish to hold the infant. After all, Clarence’s wife had rarely held her own. Nursemaids, governesses, and tutors had the rearing of the Croft offspring while Gwen had naps, dress fittings, and crushed strawberry face masques. Delia hoped Lord Tyverne would do better for Melly. Her goddaughter deserved a loving home, with people who truly cared for her. It would be too easy for the viscount to install Melinda at one of his family estates with nothing but servants for company, the way he was raised. She might grow up like him then, knowing plenty about propriety, and aught of affection. Poor little girl.

And poor Delia, as Gwen swooped around the drawing room, making mental notes for redecorating. That is, Gwen did the thinking, when she was not untangling her shawl from the chair-back finials or the window-hanging tie rods. Delia was supposed to be recording the instructions, so she could be hiring workers, sending for fabric samples, ordering the wall hangings
...
and living in total disarray.

“I am afraid all that will not be possible, Cousin,” Delia told her. “Plaster dust and new paint are so unhealthy for infants, don’t you know. His lordship could not mean to have Melinda in jeopardy while he makes arrangements for her future.”

“Surely the nursery is far enough away.” Gwen obviously had no intentions of refurbishing the nursery for her own progeny.

“Oh, but Melinda’s cradle will never be so distant. And I shall be spending most of my time looking after her, of course. Besides, I am certain you will want to oversee the renovations for yourself, to make sure everything is up to your high standards.” Faircroft House would look like a sultan’s tent, by Gwen’s standards, but Delia hoped to be gone by then. Fetching Aunt Rosalie’s smelling salts and embroidery yarns had to be better than watching Gwen destroy her family home. Of course, there was still Nanny’s future to worry about, and Aunt Lizzie’s.

Then another option arose.

“Lord Dallsworth,” Mindle announced.

Delia glared at Clarence, but he hunched his fleshy shoulders, which did little for the fit of his coat. “I wasn’t the one to invite him to visit, not after Tyverne took him in aversion. Though I cannot see what it matters to the viscount now. Married Belinda, didn’t he, not you? Could have been Lady Tyverne yourself, by Jupiter, if you’d done something about your dress and your hair. And your tongue.” Clarence’s tongue was wrapped around a peeled orange, or a pomander, depending on one’s point of view.

By her preening and posturing, Clarence’s wife must have been the Croft who encouraged Delia’s unwanted caller. Gwen held out her hand for kissing, or drooling on, as Dallsworth was wont to do, and ordered Mindle to fetch tea.

If Gwen liked Dallsworth so well, Delia wondered, why did she not simply run off with the man?

He was too old to run, for one thing; the notion of prunes-and-prisms Gwen setting herself up as a topic of gossip was so ludicrous, for another, that Delia had to hide a chuckle behind her hand, which she reclaimed from Dallsworth before he could bring it anywhere near his thin, wet lips.

He asked for her hand again, anyway. In marriage, that is.

The baron was tall but stooped, with failing eyesight, so he always appeared to be peering up through straggly brows, or leering down a lady’s décolletage. He had more hair in his eyebrows than he had on his head, but each strand there was carefully pomaded in place for maximum coverage. His clothes were old-fashioned and ill-fitting, and he must bathe as often as Hessie’s hogs, to judge from his odor. His ardor, also, offended.

Dallsworth’s wife had died three years previously, leaving him with no heir, no readily available, free bed partner, and no competent housekeeper. He did not want to bother going up to London to find some silly young miss who would not know how to run a household, or who would be pining to run off to parties and such. He definitely did not want some pretty widgeon who’d have her head turned by the first handsome buck to pass through the neighborhood.

Miss Delia Croft suited him to a cow’s thumb. She was sensible, efficient, and no beauty to catch a man’s fancy. In fact, the baron admired Delia’s dowry more than her red-haired looks. He preferred his females to be better cushioned, but there were always Dover dockside doxies when a man wanted a cozy armful, not a bony begetting. Delia would be a respectable mother to his heir, now that the disgraceful matter of her brother’s whore was concluded. He was impressed that she’d gotten Tyverne to wed the wench, boding well for Miss Croft’s potential as a political hostess. Yes, she’d serve satisfactorily as Baroness Dallsworth, and she would serve the baron, too. He licked his lips, and not over the tea tray the butler was carrying in.

He wanted the Croft chit and her dowry, and he wanted them now, before either of them got any older. “Now that you have held an infant in your arms, my dear,” he told her when she brought his cup of tea, “I am certain you will be eager to have one of your own.”

Delia was eager to go hold Melinda again, anyway.

“As am I,” Dallsworth went on. “We could share the reward of bringing forth a new life.”

A child, in this man’s image? They would both drool, for sure.

“I could not press my suit during the regrettable interval just passed, not with my political position to uphold, you understand, but once the viscount removes the, ah, child, there will be nothing to come between our marriage of true minds, heh-heh.”

Delia could think of a hundred things, half of them likely living in his unwashed linen. “I am sorry, my lord, but–”

Seeing all hope for a government appointment falling by the wayside, Clarence put down his poppy seed cake long enough to say, “You had ought to consider his lordship’s offer more seriously this time, Dilly. Might be your last chance at the pleasures of motherhood, don’t you know, and having a place of your own.”

And getting out from under Gwen’s thumb, too, Delia had to acknowledge.

The baron sweetened the offer, with a sour-breathed smile. “I might be willing to foster the infant for St. Ives when he returns to the army.”

Delia did not say that she’d rather see Lord Tyverne take Melinda back to the Peninsula than let Dallsworth touch the beautiful child. “I understand he is thinking of resigning his commission,” she said instead.

“No matter. He will be a widower on the Town then, heh-heh, target for every marriage-minded miss and her mother. And what lady—for Stivern will demand nothing less for his heir the second time—would want to raise another woman’s child?” He sipped his tea; Belinda’s dog lapped less audibly. “Much less one who is a ... heh-heh.”

“A bastard?” Delia asked, setting her own cup down. “I daresay Miss St. Ives will never be addressed as such. When the Earl of Stivern passes on, in fact, I believe Melly will become Lady Melinda. If she has half of her mother’s beauty and her father’s charm, she will be acclaimed a Belle. When her father dowers her as generously as I assume he will, she will be called a Toast, able to look as high as she pleases for a husband of her own. Why, her aunt is a duchess. Do you truly think anyone will cast aspersions on her birth?”

The baron thought Delia Croft looked almost desirable when she had some fire in her blood instead of the ice water she usually displayed. He licked his lips again. “No, of course not. She’ll make a fine playmate for our own gels, hm?”

“So you’ll need to take Nanny with you,” Clarence put in, happy to be saved from sending his old nursemaid to the poor house, or—he almost choked on a bite of lemon tart at the thought—pensioning her off.

“And your aunt Eliza,” Gwen eagerly added, anxious to remove all of the outré females from her house. “I am certain the dear baron would welcome Miss Linbury with open arms.”

Delia was certain Dallsworth would welcome Melinda, Nanny, and Aunt Eliza as much as he’d welcome another wart on his nose, but Aunt Rosalie in London was less than likely to invite any of Delia’s
ménage
at all.

“Handsome offer, I would say,” Clarence did say. “You won’t get a better one, now that you’ve whistled the viscount down the wind.” He wolfed down a macaroon.

Undoubtedly, Delia acknowledged, she would not find a more expedient solution to her difficulties. Yet, if she would not marry an eminently honorable gentleman to secure her future, how could she wed someone whose very handshake, hygiene, and heh-hehs repulsed her? The thought of sharing Dallsworth’s bed was— What was worse than repulsive? Nauseating? Worms crawling between your toes? Screeching bats tangled in your hair?

She shook her head to clear the horrid images, and recalled a large, fair-haired gentleman stretched out on a makeshift bed instead. Half dead from the fevers, Lord Tyverne had still made a more appealing picture than Dallsworth, dirty and drooling. The viscount was too appealing, in fact, and the notion of him in his bed, or in her bed, was too intriguing. Her imagination left the conversation far behind.

Gwen was planning the nuptials. “It will have to be a quiet wedding, I suppose,” she said with regret, fingering the fringe of her black shawl.

Dallsworth nodded. “Just family and closest friends. And a few party cronies who might be of use to Sir Clarence, heh-heh. I can have the vicar start calling the banns tomorrow, what? And we can have the wedding in a month. What say you?”

“I say,” came from Lord Tyverne in the doorway, “that Miss Croft will not be available.”

Chapter 20

The last time Viscount Major Tyverne had stood in the Crofts’ drawing room like a general inspecting his troops—and finding them sorely wanting—he had announced his betrothal to Delia. If he did that again, she swore to herself, make a high-handed declaration without her say-so, she might just accept the baron’s proposal, just to prove to Lord Tyverne that he did not have the ordering of this recruit. Of course she would cry off before the cat could lick its ear—or Clarence could lick the crumbs off his chin—because there was no use destroying her life to make a point. Still, the cavalier cockscomb did not command Miss Croft. He could not purchase her cooperation, nor could he intimidate her. He—

Was inviting her to London.

First Squire Gannon, Ty was thinking, now Sir Clarence and Lord Dallsworth, all in one day. How did a man get so lucky? He already condemned Clarence for half his problems, and the empty dishes on the tea tray did not endear the baronet to him one whit. Dallsworth he despised on sight. The man was a dirty dish if the viscount ever saw one, filthy, fifty if he was a day, and fondling Miss Croft with his leer. The valiant female was holding her ground for now, chin in the air, eyes sparkling, but the hyenas would wear her down. Ty could not go to London, after the blasted funeral, leaving George’s sister with this pack of scavengers. Not if he wanted to sleep well at nights, he couldn’t.

Sleep, night, and Miss Croft were a heady combination. The more Ty thought of it, the more he wanted the woman in London where she could be cared for and comfortable. Cherished, that’s what she deserved to be, not hounded and harried by this scurvy lot. She also ought to be close to him. Very close, where a good night’s sleep was the last consideration.

He bit his lip. A gentleman controlled his baser urges, and his mental images, or took a lot of cold baths. Unlike Dallsworth, obviously, Ty liked hot, soapy water, and he liked having a rational mind, a disciplined body. He was no lusting lad, and Miss Croft was a lady. There was something about the woman, however, that shook him from his senses to his stockings.

Ty was not about to rush his fences this time, though. “I have written to my sister,” he told the assembled company, “and asked if I might bring the infant to her home once the child can travel, and until better arrangements can be made. I thought Miss Croft would come along to assist.”

“What, Cousin Dilly travel with you to Town?” Gwen took out her fan and cooled her face, and the tea. “La, that is not at all the thing.”

Ty had thought to send a carriage for them when he got back to London, as soon as his brother’s argle-bargle was resolved. Now he decided he better ride alongside the coach. “With Nanny and Miss Eliza Linbury as chaperone, I believe your cousin’s reputation will be preserved. The great debt I owe her brother would ensure my every care for her good name.”

“And then,” Clarence wanted to know, in case he was expected to send a coach for all of them to return, “once they get there?”

“Why, then my sister will need assistance with the child. She never had one, to her regret.” The fact that neither had Miss Croft made no never mind. “I doubt her household is equipped, either.” Ann was a duchess; she could order the moon and have it delivered on the instant, with enough servants to see to the unpacking. That was not the point. “And Miss Croft can help me select a more permanent home for the infant, interview families, that sort of thing. I expect it to take a month or more, to make the right choice.”

“Yes, but then?” Clarence persisted, wondering if he could still negotiate a contract with Lord Dallsworth.

“After that if your cousin and my sister find they suit, perhaps Miss Croft will consider staying on. The duke travels a great deal, and my sister is alone too often.”

Nanny, Aunt Eliza, and Delia out of the house all at once? Gwen thought the idea marvelous. Why, with their cousin connected to a duchess, who knew what invitations and opportunities would fall Sir Clarence’s way? “Perhaps we might come to Town ourselves, to lend our expertise. Especially since Faircroft will be undergoing renovations. Dilly reminded us how insalubrious such things can be,” Gwen hinted, then waited for an invitation. Her tea would grow a lot colder before one was forthcoming.

“No, no, I cannot like the idea,” Lord Dallsworth said. “Miss Croft living at your sister’s that way, with the infant, there is bound to be gossip. Miss Croft’s reputation will suffer. It will not do, not at all.”

Ty looked hard at the old goat. “I cannot see where it is your concern, and that is the truth.” Then he finally turned to Delia, afraid he’d overstepped the bounds again, afraid she would say no, afraid she would say yes and foul up the rest of his life. “What say you to the notion, Miss Croft? Will it serve?”