First Comes Marriage (7 page)

And yet Margaret herself had danced all but two sets.

“I did not sit down all evening either,” Katherine said. “Was it not a delightful evening? Of course,
you
made the greatest conquest, Nessie. You danced the
opening set,
no less, with Viscount Lyngate, who is really so handsome that I daresay there was not a steady female heartbeat in the rooms all evening. If you had not come here this morning, I would have had to walk over to Rundle.
Tell all!
”

“There is not much to tell. He danced with me because Papa-in-law gave him little choice,” Vanessa said. “He was
not,
alas, smitten by my charms, and if he came to the Valentine’s assembly to find a bride, he gave up the search after one dance with me. How very lowering, to be sure.”

They all chuckled.

“You belittle yourself, Nessie,” Margaret said. “He did not ignore you. He conversed with you while you danced.”

“Because I forced him into it,” Vanessa said. “He told me that I was quite ravishingly beautiful.”

“Nessie!” Katherine exclaimed.

“And then he went on to say that so was every other lady in the room without exception,” Vanessa told them. “Which effectively negated the compliment, would you not say?”

“Was that when you threw back your head and laughed?” Margaret asked. “You had everyone in the room smiling, Nessie, and wishing they could eaves-drop. You
forced
him into speaking such nonsense? How do you do it? You have always had a gift for making people laugh. Even Hedley when he was . . . very ill.”

Vanessa had used the last reserves of her energy during those final few weeks, making him laugh, keeping him smiling. She had collapsed afterward. She had scarcely been able to drag herself out of bed for two whole weeks after the funeral.

“Oh,” she said, blinking away tears, “but it was Viscount Lyngate who made
me
laugh.”

“Did he explain,” Katherine asked, “why he is in Throckbridge?”

“He did not,” Vanessa said. “But he did say something very peculiar. He asked me about the
third
Huxtable sister, having been presented only to the two of you. Did Papa-in-law mention my existence when he presented Viscount Lyngate to you last evening?”

“Not that I recall,” Margaret said, looking up from the pillowcase she was mending.

“He did not,” Katherine said decisively. “Perhaps he said something after they walked away from us, or when he was presenting Stephen. Did you answer him?”

“I told him
I
was the third sister,” Vanessa said. “And he commented that he had not been informed that one of us had been married. Then he changed the subject and asked me about Hedley.”

“How peculiar indeed,” Katherine said.

“I wonder,” Vanessa said, “what Viscount Lyngate
is
doing in Throckbridge—if he is not just innocently passing through, that is. But he told Papa-in-law that he has business here. How did he know there were
three
Huxtable sisters? And why would that fact be of any interest whatsoever to him?”

“Idle curiosity, I daresay,” Margaret said. “Whatever does Stephen do to split the seams of every pillowcase I put on his bed?” She picked up another and tackled it with her needle and thread.

“Perhaps it was
not
idle curiosity,” Katherine said, jumping suddenly to her feet, her eyes fixed beyond the parlor window. “He is coming here now. They
both
are.” Her voice had risen to something resembling a squeak.

Margaret hastily set aside her mending and Vanessa turned her head sharply to look out the window and see that indeed Viscount Lyngate and Mr. Bowen were coming through the garden gate and proceeding up the path to the front door. Her father-in-law must have had an uncharacteristically short visit with them.

“I say!” They could hear Stephen clattering down the stairs, calling as he came, obviously glad of any excuse to escape from his books for a while. “Meg? We have visitors coming. Ah, are you here too, Nessie? I daresay the viscount was smitten with your charms last evening and has come to offer for you. I shall question him very sternly about his ability to support you before I give my consent.” He grinned and winked at her.

“Oh, dear,” Katherine said as a knock sounded at the door, “whatever does one say to a
viscount
?”

The two gentlemen had come here to Throckbridge, Vanessa realized suddenly in some shock, because of
them
.
They
were the business the viscount had spoken of. He had known of them before he came here, though he had not been informed that one of them had been married. What a strange and intriguing mystery this was! She was very glad she had come here this morning.

They waited for Mrs. Thrush to open the front door. And then they waited for the parlor door to open, as if they were presenting a silent tableau on a stage. After what was only a few moments but felt like several minutes, it opened and the two gentlemen were announced.

It was the viscount who entered first this time.

There was no concession to the country in his appearance this morning, Vanessa was quick to see. He wore a calf-length heavy greatcoat, which must have sported a dozen capes, a tall beaver hat, which he had already removed, tan leather gloves, which he was in the process of removing, and supple black leather boots, which must have cost a fortune. He looked larger, more imposing, more forbidding—and ten times more gorgeous—than he had appeared last evening as he glanced around the small parlor before bowing to Margaret. He was also frowning, as though this were a visit he did not relish. He looked far from joking and flirting this morning.

Why had he come here?
Why on earth?

“Miss Huxtable,” he said. He turned to them each in turn. “Mrs. Dew? Miss Katherine? Huxtable?”

Mr. Bowen bowed to them all, smiling genially.

“Ladies? Huxtable?” he said.

Vanessa told herself quite deliberately, as she had the evening before, that she was
not
going to be awed by a fashionable greatcoat and costly boots and a title. Or by a darkly handsome, finely chiseled, frowning face. Gracious heavens, her father-in-law was not a nobody. He was a baronet!

She
felt
awed nonetheless. Viscount Lyngate looked quite out of place in Meg’s humble, not-quite-shabby parlor. He made it look many times smaller than usual. He seemed to have sucked half the air out of it.

“My lord? Mr. Bowen?” Margaret said with admirable composure as she indicated the two chairs that flanked the fireplace. “Won’t you have a seat? Will you bring a tray of tea, please, Mrs. Thrush?”

They all seated themselves as Mrs. Thrush, looking decidedly relieved at being dismissed, whisked herself out of sight.

Mr. Bowen complimented them on the picturesque appearance of the cottage. He guessed that the garden was a picture of color and beauty during the summer. He commended the village on the success of last evening’s assembly. He had spent a decidedly agreeable evening, he assured them.

Viscount Lyngate spoke again after the tray had been brought in and the tea poured.

“I am the bearer of news that concerns all of you,” he said. “I am afraid it is my sad duty to inform you all of the recent demise of the Earl of Merton.”

They all stared at him for a moment.

“That is sad news indeed,” Margaret said, breaking the silence, “and I am much obliged to you for bringing it in person, my lord. I believe we do have a connection with the earl’s family, though we have never had any communication with them. Our father discouraged any talk of them. Nessie may be better acquainted with the exact relationship.” She looked inquiringly at her sister.

Vanessa had spent a great deal of time with her paternal grandparents as a child and had always listened enthralled to their endless stories of their younger years while Margaret had been less interested.

“Our grandfather was a younger son of the Earl of Merton,” she said. “He was cut off from the family when they objected to his wild ways and his choice of our grandmother as his bride. He never saw them again. He used to tell me that our papa was first cousin to the current earl. Is it he who has just died, my lord? That would make us his first cousins once removed.”

“I say,” Stephen said, “that really is quite a close relationship. I had no idea, though I knew there was
some
connection. We are indeed obliged to you, my lord, for coming. Did the new earl ask you to find us? Is there some question of a family reconciliation?” He had brightened considerably.

“I am not sure I would
want
one,” Katherine said with some feeling, “if they all turned their backs on Grandpapa because he married Grandmama. We would not even exist if he had not.”

“I shall nevertheless write a letter of condolence to the new earl and his family,” Margaret said. “It is the civil thing to do. Would you not agree, Nessie? Perhaps you would take it with you when you go, my lord.”

“The earl who recently died was a mere boy of sixteen,” Viscount Lyngate explained. “He survived his father by only three years. I was his guardian and the executor of his estates after the demise of my own father last year. Unfortunately the boy was always in precarious health and was never expected to live to adulthood.”

“Ah, poor boy,” Vanessa murmured.

His keen, unsettlingly blue eyes rested on her for a moment and she leaned farther back in her chair.

“The young earl had no son, of course,” he said, turning back to Stephen, “and no brothers who could succeed him. No uncles either. The search for his successor moved back to his grandfather and
his
brother—your grandfather—and his descendants.”

“Oh, I say,” Stephen said as Vanessa pressed even farther back into her chair and Katherine’s hands came up to cover her cheeks.

Grandpapa had had only the one son—their father.

“It alit upon you, in fact,” Viscount Lyngate said. “I have come here to inform you, Huxtable, that you are now the Earl of Merton and owner of Warren Hall in Hampshire among other properties, all of them prosperous, I am happy to report. My felicitations.”

Stephen merely stared at him. His face had turned a pasty white.

“An
earl
?” Katherine whispered.
“Stephen?”

Vanessa gripped the arms of her chair.

Margaret looked as if she were cast out of marble.

“Congratulations, lad,” Mr. Bowen said with hearty good humor as he rose to his feet to offer Stephen his hand.

Stephen surged to his feet to take it.

“It is unfortunate,” Viscount Lyngate continued, “that your upbringing has not prepared you for the life that is to be yours, Merton. There is much work involved and a large number of duties and responsibilities apart from just the glamour of possessing rank and fortune. You will need a great deal of training and education, all of which I will arrange and in which I will be pleased to involve myself. We will need to remove you to Warren Hall without further delay. It is already February. It is to be hoped that by the time Easter has come and gone, you will be ready to make an appearance in London. The
ton
will be gathered there in large numbers, you will understand, for the Season and the parliamentary session. They will be waiting to make your acquaintance, young as you are. Can you be ready to leave tomorrow morning?”

“Tomorrow morning?” Stephen said, releasing Mr. Bowen’s hand in order to stare at the viscount in some astonishment. “That soon? But I—”

“Tomorrow morning, my lord?” Margaret said more firmly. Vanessa recognized the thread of steel in her voice.
“Alone?”

“It is necessary, Miss Huxtable,” the viscount explained. “We have already wasted several months discovering the new Merton’s whereabouts. Easter will—”

“He is seventeen,” Margaret said. “It is quite out of the question that he go with you alone. And
tomorrow
? It is impossible. There will be all sorts of preparations to make. The
ton
can wait to make his acquaintance.”

“I am well aware, ma’am—” the viscount began.

“Oh, I think you are
not,
” Margaret told him while Vanessa and Katherine gazed from one to the other in silent fascination and Stephen lowered himself to his chair again, looking as if he might be on the verge of collapse. “My brother has never been more than a few miles from home, and yet you expect him to leave alone with you, a perfect stranger, tomorrow in order to live in a new home among people he has never met and enter upon a life that is totally unexpected and totally foreign to him?”

“Meg—” Stephen’s cheeks were suddenly flushed.

“When my father lay on his deathbed eight years ago,” Margaret said, holding up a staying hand but not removing her eyes from the viscount, “I made him a solemn promise that I would see all my siblings to adulthood and care for them until they were all old enough and able to care for themselves. I have always held that promise sacred. Stephen is going nowhere tomorrow and nowhere the next day or the day after that. Not alone anyway.”

Viscount Lyngate raised his eyebrows and looked very haughty indeed.

“I do assure you, ma’am,” he said, impatience obvious in every line of his body, “that your brother will be very well cared for indeed under my guardianship. He is one of the wealthiest men in the land, and it is imperative—”

“Under your
guardianship
?” Margaret said. “I beg your pardon, my lord. Stephen is under
my
care even if it turns out that he is as rich as Croesus and the King of England.”

“Meg,” Stephen said, and pushed the fingers of one hand through his curls, which immediately restored themselves to their usual disorder. He looked horribly embarrassed. “I am seventeen, not seven. And I am the Earl of Merton unless this is some bizarre hoax. I had better go and find out what it is all about and learn how to do the job properly. It would be lowering to meet my peers and not have any idea how to go on. You have to agree with that.”