Marjorie Farrell (5 page)

The viscount had no direction for her, so he decided to stop at the Bird in Hand and make inquiries. In such a small town, he was sure someone would recognize the name. He tethered his horse and inquired of the innkeeper, a rotund, cheery-looking man, who was busy drying glasses at the bar.

“Pardon me, but I am looking for the house of a Mrs. Dillon. I believe that she lives in Hampstead with her daughter.”

“Eh…and what would you be wanting with Mrs. Dillon, if I did know her? Which I am not sure if I do or I don’t, if you understand?”

“I am a friend of Lord Jeremy Whitford’s, and having heard him speak of her daughter, I wished to meet them both.”

The landlord’s face lit up at Jeremy’s name, and he put down the last glass and came out from behind me bar, wiping his hands on his apron.

“Well, then, that does mean something. John Barker here,” he said with a smile, and reached out his hand.

“Marcus Vane,” replied the viscount. “Pleased to meet you. You know my young friend, then?”

“Yes. He stops in for the occasional ale on his way back to London, and a finer young gent I have yet to meet. He and Miss Dillon make a lovely couple.”

Sam nodded and said, “Speaking of the Dillons, I do need to get on. Can you direct me?”

“Continue on up the High Street, past Windmill Hill and you will come to three cottages on your right. Go past the first two, then turn right down the path, and you’ll be in front of Mrs. Dillon’s. She calls it Heathside, though it is not as close to the Heath as all that.”

“Thank you, Mr. Barker.”

“John. Call me John. Any friend of Nora Dillon’s is a friend of mine. Come back for an ale, if you have the time.”

“I will,” replied the viscount. The landlord had surprised him. Nora! She must indeed be Irish, and Lavinia would be furious.

It was a short ride from the tavern, and the landlord’s directions were excellent. Heathside, identified by a weather-beaten sign on the gate, was a respectable little house with only a small yard to the right separating it from its neighbor, but with a well-tended flower garden to the left, two apple trees, and then a small open field. Sam dismounted in front and opened the gate. He was about to continue up the walk and knock on the door when he became aware of movement behind the flowers. There appeared to be a vegetable garden next to the flowers, in which, from what he could see, a young woman in a laborer’s green smock was on her knees, weeding.

“Young woman,” he called.

The woman rose and looked behind her and then over at Sam. “Are you calling to me, sir?”

“Yes, I am. I am looking for a Mrs. Dillon. Do you work for her?”

“Yes,” the woman replied after the slightest hesitation.

“Is she at home this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Well, could you announce me?” Sam asked patiently.

“I could, if you will tell me who you are.”

“Yes. Please tell her that Marcus Samuel Vane, Viscount Acland, is here to speak with her.”

A puzzled look flitted across the woman’s face, but she curtsied quite gracefully, albeit rather exaggeratedly, Sam thought, for one in such a smock and with hands caked with soil.

“Please go right into the parlor, m’lord. The door is open. I must go around the back,” she said as she gestured at her clothes. “I’ll send Mrs. Dillon in.”

“Thank you.” The viscount retraced his steps and opened the door, expecting to find himself in some overdone setting, and was surprised to find the parlor a tastefully done room, comfortable rather than fashionable. The furniture was not new, but seemed to have been collected, piece by piece, with little regard for era, so in one corner was a Queen Anne table and floorboards were wide, but well-polished and covered with some small Turkey rugs in shades of red and blue. Sam sat down in a comfortable chair of no particular “period” and gazed around the room. There were fresh-cut roses in a vase, and hanging on the wall was a small portrait of a child of about three. The style seemed familiar, and Sam got up to view it more closely. The little girl had wavy blond hair and blue eyes. She was dressed in a simple blue smock, and looked like a country child. The delicacy and loving attention to the details of complexion and hair reminded the viscount of Romney’s portraits of Emma, Lady Hamilton, and then he realized that he was indeed looking at a Romney.

“I see you admiring my daughter,” said a voice behind him, and he turned quickly, embarrassed to be caught out in his curiosity. The woman in the garden stood before him, and he saw that she was not young, as he had thought. But he was not surprised that he had taken her for a younger woman, for her face was free of paint and tinged with a healthy glow from working outside, and she had kept her figure, he could tell.

“I was waiting for Mrs. Dillon, and was drawn to this portrait. It is a Romney, if I am not mistaken.”

“Yes. Miranda caught his eye and there was nothing for it but he
would
paint her. She sat very nicely, for a three-year-old, if I do say so myself.”

“Miranda?”

“Miranda Dillon. My daughter.”

Of all the pictures Sam had conjured up, none bore any relation to the reality of the small woman before him. Instead of an overbearing vulgarity, there stood before him an unassuming woman dressed in a faded blue muslin dress, with newly washed face and hands (though he could still see dirt under her nails), who extended her hand to him gracefully and finally introduced herself.

“I am Honora Dillon, my lord. And I already know your name. That ‘young woman’ I employ in the garden told me,” she said with a mischievous smile.

“Now I
am
embarrassed.”

“Why so? I haven’t been called a young woman in years. I am pleased, not insulted. Come, sit down. What are you here to see me about? I must confess I did not recognize your name. Should I have?”

The viscount decided to come straight to the point. “I am the Earl of Alverstone’s godfather.”

“You are
Sam!
I am pleased to meet you. Although I wish that Jeremy had told me you were coming. I would have been dressed to meet you and had tea ready. Speaking of which, let me put a kettle on to boil.”

Before Sam could stop her, she was gone. He sat there feeling more and more uncomfortable. She was so different from what he had imagined. And clearly on a very familiar footing with his godson. He would have to proceed differently.

When Mrs. Dillon returned, she brought in a tray with two cups of tea and a plateful of sliced brown bread and fresh curls of butter.

“I am afraid that today is not a baking day,” she said apologetically, “so I have nothing fresh to offer you. But the bread was baked only yesterday.”

Eager to do anything but begin what he had come for, Sam dug in. He was hungry and the bread was delicious.

“This is like the brown loaf they serve in Ireland,” he said.

“Why, yes. How unusual that you would have been there and tasted something so homely.”

“I spent some time there on government business, but I did get to know the countryside and its people.”

“My husband was Irish, and I got this recipe from his aunt.”

“You are a widow?”

“My husband died many years ago.” There seemed to be a difference in tone as she answered, but Sam put that down to embarrassment or a lingering sadness.

“But you are not Irish yourself, I think?”

“No. I am originally from the north.”

“And you write novels, according to Jeremy.” Sam was trying to sound natural, but at this last, Mrs. Dillon looked up at him questioningly.

“Forgive me if I am wrong, my lord, but your questioning and this sudden visit lead me to believe that you are not here on just a friendly mission.”

Sam had hoped to continue his “subtle” probing for a while longer. It was quite unlike a lady to bring the conversation to a point so quickly, but then, of course, Mrs. Dillon was not a lady.

“You are correct,” he replied quietly.

Mrs. Dillon’s face flushed, whether from anger or embarrassment, Sam was not sure. It was unusual to see a grown woman blush, and such openness of feeling surprised him.

“I think I begin to see the purpose of your visit, but if I am right, I would be so disappointed in Jeremy’s ‘Sam’ that I would rather you not go on.”

“Jeremy does not know I have come here.”

“That is becoming clear to me.”

“In fact, I hope you will not tell him.”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On what else you have to say.”

“Lady Whitford, Jeremy’s mother, told me of his involvement with your daughter.”

“His involvement? They are fast friends, if that is what you mean. But perhaps his mother objects to that friendship for some reason?”

“I am not sure it is only a friendship they have found, and yes, Lavinia does have some objections.”

“Which are…?”

The viscount was having a hard time of it. He could hardly say to this woman that Lavinia did not want her son associated with the daughter of a scheming Irish lady-writer, since she was neither vulgar nor, it seemed, Irish. Whether she was scheming remained to be determined.

“The earl’s mother naturally wishes him to make a connection with a young lady of his own rank. She does not believe, nor do I, that unequal matches lead to anything but unhappiness for both parties.” Sam thought he had phrased the objections in a most diplomatic way. He had said nothing personal, nor anything shocking. Therefore he was a bit taken aback to see the surprise on Mrs. Dillon’s face.

“As another mother, I would have to agree with the countess. But we are speaking only of friendship, after all. I suppose that it may seem unconventional to someone in society. Perhaps I have a more lenient view, but I find no cause for concern in the companionship that Jeremy and Miranda have found.”

“I see your daughter has not been as open with you as my godson has been with his mother. The earl told her that he and Miss Dillon have an informal agreement.”

Mrs. Dillon’s eyes widened at this, and Sam could have sworn the expression in them was one of genuine surprise and concern.

“If this is so
—and Jeremy…the earl has always seemed to me to be an open and honest young man—then I begin to understand the purpose of your visit.” She placed a heavy emphasis on “earl” as if to say indirectly: I see what you are trying to say by using his title and not his name. “It was not merely to meet me or to discourage their friendship, was it? It was to warn me off. You are quite correct, the daughter of a Mrs. Dillon, novelist, could never be right for the Earl of Alverstone.”

“I am sorry to surprise you with this, Mrs. Dillon. Of course, we thought you knew.”

“Of course, you thought me behind it all,” she replied in a low voice shaking with anger. “You thought me some scheming woman who would try to entrap a young man for her daughter’s advancement. Or even worse,” and she looked up at Sam, her eyes flashing, “who would use her daughter to blackmail the earl’s mother. How much would you have been prepared to pay, had I been that sort of woman?”

“It is not like that at all,” the viscount protested. Not
now
,
anyway, he thought to himself. “The countess and I merely wished to make sure that you knew we could not, in good conscience, agree to such a match. We were hoping, in fact, you would ask your daughter not to see the earl again.”

“The earl? Jeremy, you mean. It makes it quite easy, doesn’t it, not to think about his feelings or Miranda’s when you use his title. Then he sounds so above her that the reality of their feelings for one another is diminished. And if I refuse to ask her?”

“Then we would take it up with the earl…I mean, Jeremy. I am his guardian until he comes of age next year, and I would forbid him to continue his acquaintance with her.”

“Do you think he would obey you?”

“He has always respected my wishes and those of his mother in the past, Mrs. Dillon,” Sam said firmly.

“I will tell you something that may come as a surprise to you, Lord Acland. I did not know Jeremy and Miranda’s friendship was anything more than just that. I was happy to see them together. Jeremy is a fine, intelligent young man, and my daughter has been rather isolated from young people of her own caliber, if not class. They met by chance, you know, and seemed immediately to recognize a kindred spirit in each other. I see nothing to object to in their friendship, although society would not agree with me.”

“No do I,” Sam reflected, “although I fear the countess would not agree with either of us.”

“But, while I have no objection to their friendship,” Nora Dillon continued, “I do have my own objections to anything more intimate. Miranda is barely eighteen and Jeremy only twenty. If they believe it to be love, then it is clearly a first love, for her at least. I do not think one’s first love is ever one’s last. And the difference in position is as much a concern to me as to the countess, I assure you, although for different reasons.”

Sam did not know how to proceed. Having come prepared to bully or bribe a very different sort of woman, having realized, almost immediately, that he would instead have to make a reasoned argument, having begun to marshal rational statements in his head, he now felt like a soldier standing fully armed and ready to charge at an enemy who had already left the field. Mrs. Dillon was not a schemer, nor was she a romantic, whatever sort of novels she wrote. There was no need to do anything, it seemed, but to agree upon tactics.

“So you will tell your daughter that she must not see Jeremy again?”

“I did not precisely say that, my lord,” Mrs. Dillon looked amused at the viscount’s obvious consternation. “Let us look at the situation in the way a dramatist might,” she said lightly. “We have here two young people, a Montague and a Capulet, as it were. Both families are against the match. Both families keep them away from one another, going on about the unsuitableness of the match. What better way to fan the fires of a first love than to forbid it? If you will forgive both my literary allusions and alliteration.”

“You don’t think your daughter would obey you?”

“I think in matters of the heart
—and if Miranda agreed to
even an informal betrothal, her heart is given
—even the most obedient and conforming children cannot help but disobey. I know this from experience.” This last was spoken so low that Sam almost didn’t hear it. “And,” she continued, “I suspect Jeremy would not take an arbitrary dismissal easily. He would pursue her, don’t you see?”