In the Land of the Long White Cloud (9 page)

“Oh?” Gwyneira asked, curious. “How much did you offer?”

Lord Terence ground his teeth. It was a nasty habit, he knew, but Gwyneira always drove him to desperation.

“Of course I didn’t offer him anything. I appealed to his reason and sense of honor. However, these qualities don’t seem to hold much weight for him.” Terence turned away, visibly ashamed.

“So you don’t have any scruples about marrying me off to a sharper’s son?” Gwyneira concluded with amusement. “But in all seriousness, Father, what do you think I should do? Refuse the proposal? Or accept it reluctantly? Should I act dignified or dejected? Cry or wail? Maybe I could run away. That would be the most honorable solution. If I disappeared into the night, you’d be free of the whole affair!” Gwyneira’s eyes flashed at the thought of such an adventure. However, rather than running away, she’d prefer to be kidnapped…

He balled his hands into fists. “Gwyneira, I don’t know either. Of course, it would be embarrassing for me if you refused. But it would be just as embarrassing to me if you felt bound to it. And I would never forgive myself if you were unhappy over there. That’s why I’m asking you…well, perhaps you could hear the proposal, how should I put this…graciously?”

Gwyneira shrugged. “Very well. Then let’s hear it. But for that I must go fetch my prospective father-in-law, don’t you think? And Mother as well, I suppose…then again, no, her nerves couldn’t handle it. We’ll tell Mother after the fact. So, where is Mr. Warden?”

Gerald Warden had been waiting in the next room. He found the events playing out that day in the Silkham house quite entertaining. Gwyneira’s sisters had called for the smelling salts six times already; they had also complained alternately of nervous agitation and weakness. The maids had hardly had a moment’s rest. For the moment, Lady Silkham was resting in the salon with a bag of ice to her forehead while Diana implored her husband to effect Gwyneira’s rescue somehow, even if it meant challenging Warden to a duel. Understandably, the colonel demonstrated little inclination to do any such thing. He merely punished the New Zealander with his contempt and seemed to wish with all his heart for nothing more than to leave his in-laws’ house as quickly as possible.

Gwyneira appeared to be taking the whole thing in stride. The lord had refused to call Gerald in immediately to converse with her, but it would have been hard not to hear such a spirited girl having a temper tantrum, even from the next room. Afterward, when Warden was called into the study, he found that Gwyneira was not crying, but
rather, that her cheeks were glowing. He’d been hoping for just such a reaction; his proposal had no doubt come as a surprise to Gwyneira, but she did not appear to be averse to it. She turned her enchanting blue eyes intently upon the man who had just won her hand in such an unusual way.

“Is there perhaps a picture or something?” Gwyneira did not bother with small talk but came straight to the point. Warden found her just as charming as she had been the day before. Her simple blue skirt highlighted her slim figure, and her quilled blouse made her look more mature, though she had not bothered pinning up her luscious red mane this time. Her maids had merely tied two strands together behind her head with a blue velvet ribbon to keep her hair out of her face. Otherwise, it fell curly and free far down Gwyneira’s back.

“A picture?” Gerald Warden asked, taken aback. “Well…floor plans…I have a sketch of the house somewhere around here because I wanted to discuss it with an English architect first…”

Gwyneira burst out laughing. She did not seem a bit shaken or afraid. “Not of your house, Mr. Warden! Of your son. Of…uh, Lucas. Don’t you have a daguerreotype or photograph?”

Gerald Warden shook his head. “Regrettably not, my lady. But you’ll like Lucas. My wife, may she rest in peace, was a beauty, and everyone says Lucas was cut from the same cloth. And he’s tall, taller than I am, but of a thinner build. He’s tow-headed, has gray eyes…and was very well brought up, Lady Gwyneira. Which cost me a fortune, one private tutor from England after another…Sometimes I think, we…ahem, overdid it. Lucas is…well, society is charmed by him at any rate. And you’ll like Kiward Station just as much. The house is built after English models. It’s not one of the usual wood huts, but rather, a manor house built from gray sandstone. Nothing but the best! And I had the furniture sent from London, made by the best joiners. I even entrusted a decorator with the selection so as not to do anything wrong. You won’t miss a thing, my lady. Naturally, the help is not as well trained as your maids here, but our Maori are willing and ready to learn. We could add a rose garden on quite easily, if you want…”

He stopped short when Gwyneira made a face. The rose garden seemed to scare her off.

“Could I bring Cleo along?” the girl asked. The little dog had been lying under the table but raised her head when she heard her name. With that adoring collie gaze that Gerald was by now familiar with, she looked up at Gwyneira.

“And Igraine too?”

Gerald Warden had to think a moment before he realized Gwyneira was talking about her mare.

“Gwyneira, not the horse too,” her father interrupted moodily. “You’re acting like a child. Here we’re talking about your future, and you can only think of your toys!”

“You think my pets are toys?” Gwyneira snapped, visibly hurt by her father’s remark. “A sheepdog that wins every competition and the best hunting horse in Powys?”

Gerald Warden saw his chance. “My lady, you can bring along anything you want,” he said, appeasing her by taking her side. “Your mare will be the jewel of my stables. We need only think about acquiring a suitable stallion. And the dog…well, you know I already expressed my interest in her yesterday.”

Gwyneira still seemed angry at her father’s comment, but she steeled herself and even managed a joke.

“So that’s what you’re up to,” she said with a mischievous grin, but rather cold eyes. “This whole proposal is really only aimed at wrangling away my father’s prize-winning sheepdog. Now I get it. But I will nevertheless consider your offer in a positive light. I’m probably worth more to you than to my father. At the very least, Mr. Warden, you seem able to tell a riding horse from a toy. Now allow me please to withdraw. And I must ask that you excuse me likewise, Father. I must give this all some thought. We’ll see each other at tea, I think.”

Gwyneira swept out of the room, still filled with a vague but glowing rage. Her eyes filled with tears, but she would not let anyone see that.
As always, when she was angry and hatching schemes of revenge, she sent her maids away and curled up in the farthest corner of her canopy bed, pulling the curtains closed. Cleo made sure that the servants had really gone. Then she slipped through a fold and snuggled up to her mistress consolingly.

“Now at least we know what my father thinks of us,” Gwyneira said, scratching Cleo’s soft fur. “You’re just a toy, and I’m a blackjack bet.”

Before, when her father had admitted what had transpired over cards, she hadn’t thought the bet was all that bad. It was even amusing that her father had gone wild like that, and surely the proposal wasn’t something to be taken seriously. On the other hand, it wouldn’t have been a good thing for Terence Silkham’s honor if Gwyneira had refused outright to consider Warden’s suggestion. Then there was the fact that her father had gamed away her future; after all, Warden had won the sheep with or without Gwyneira. And the revenue from the flock was supposed to have been her dowry. Now Gwyneira didn’t have a shot at a marriage. Then again, she was fond of Silkham Manor and would have liked best to take over the farm one day. She would undoubtedly handle it better than her brother, who, when it came to country living, was interested only in hunting and the occasional race. As a child, Gwyneira had painted herself a brightly colored future: she would live on the farm with her brother and take care of everything while John Henry pursued his pleasures. At the time, both children had thought it a good plan.

“I’ll be a jockey!” John Henry had declared. “And breed horses!”

“And I’ll take care of the sheep and ponies!” Gwyneira had revealed to their father.

As long as the children were little, their father had laughed and called his daughter “my little forewoman.” But as the children grew older and the farmhands spoke more respectfully of Gwyneira, and Cleo often beat John Henry’s dog in competitions, Terence Silkham became increasingly displeased to see his daughter in the stables.

Today he had even admitted he viewed her work as mere child’s play. Gwyneira squeezed her pillow with rage. But then she began to
think it through more carefully. Had her father really meant it that way? Wasn’t it, in fact, that he saw Gwyneira as competition for his son and heir? At least as a hindrance and obstacle to her brother’s training as a future manorial lord? If that was the case, then she certainly had no future at Silkham Manor. With or without a dowry, her father would marry her off, at the very latest before her brother finished college the following year. Her mother was pushing for that already; she couldn’t wait to exile her wild child to the hearth and embroidery tambour. And given her financial situation, Gwyneira knew she couldn’t make any demands. There would most certainly not be a young lord with an estate comparable to Silkham Manor. She would have to be happy if a man like Colonel Riddleworth condescended to her. She would likely end up being forced to live in a house in the city, married to some second or third son of a noble family who was slogging it out as a doctor or barrister in Cardiff. Gwyneira imagined the daily tea parties, the charity committee meetings…and shivered.

But then there was still Gerald Warden’s proposal.

Thus far she had viewed the journey to New Zealand only as a hypothetical question. Very attractive, but wholly impossible. Just the thought of tying the knot with someone on the other side of the world—a man whose own father could come up with only twenty words to describe him—struck her as absurd. But now she found her thoughts turning seriously to Kiward Station: a farm, of which she would be the mistress, a pioneer wife, just like in the penny novels! No doubt Warden was exaggerating in his description of his salon and the grandeur of his manor house. He likely just wanted to make a good impression on her parents. The farming operation must still be in development. It had to be, or Warden wouldn’t be buying any sheep. Gwyneira would work hand in hand with her husband. She could help with herding the sheep and till a garden in which she would grow real vegetables instead of boring roses. She could picture herself sweating behind a plow pulled by a strong cob across land made arable for the first time.

And Lucas…well, he was young at least and supposedly good looking. She couldn’t ask for much more. Even in England love would hardly have been a consideration in her choice of a husband.

“What do you think of New Zealand?” she asked her dog, scratching her belly. Cleo looked at her, rapt, and gave her a collie smile.

Gwyneira smiled back.

“Well all right. Agreement duly noted!” She giggled. “That means…we still have to ask Igraine. But what’ll you bet she says yes when I tell her about the stallion?”

The selection of Gwyneira’s trousseau turned into a long, hard struggle between Gwyneira and her mother. After Lady Silkham recovered from her many fainting spells following Gwyneira’s decision, she set about making wedding preparations with her usual fervor. She lamented endlessly and verbosely that the event wouldn’t be taking place at Silkham Manor this time but instead somewhere out “in the wilderness.” Gerald Warden’s grand descriptions of his manor house on the Canterbury Plains always found considerably more approbation with her than with her daughter. It likewise contributed to Lady Silkham’s relief that Gerald took a healthy interest in all matters relating to her daughter’s trousseau.

“But, of course, your daughter needs a splendid wedding dress,” he declared, for example, after Gwyneira had rejected her mother’s vision of white quilling and a yard-long train, saying she would surely have to ride to the wedding and those would just get in the way.

“We will either celebrate the big day in the Christchurch chapel or—what I would personally prefer—in a ceremony at home on the farm. In the former case, the wedding itself would, of course, be more festive, but it would be difficult to rent out the necessary space and personnel for the reception afterward. So I hope I can talk Reverend Baldwin into a visit to Kiward Station. Then I can host the guests in greater style. Illustrious guests, you understand. The lieutenant general will attend, leading representatives of business and the Crown…all the
better society of Canterbury. For that reason, Gwyneira’s dress can’t be costly enough. You’ll look marvelous, my child!”