Miss Mischief - A Regency Romance (9 page)

James gave her the sickly smile of a man far gone in the throes of puppy love and she sighed inwardly. ‘Are you feeling quite the thing now, Miss Claybourn,’ he inquired anxiously.

‘I am perfectly well, thank you James.’

‘I was frightfully worried,’ he confided, leaning forward a little. His mother, Johanna noticed, had not been particularly overset by the possibility of her young acquaintance having met trouble. She had probably been hoping that gypsies had carried Johanna far, far away. Certainly, far enough to no longer be in her son’s orbit.

‘I am sorry you were all so worried,’ Johanna murmured. James Esk was a pleasant enough fellow but he did moon around to a quite ridiculous degree. His particular method of wooing her was to pen love songs, which he then tried to croon to her. On one memorable occasion he had done so beneath what he hoped was her window. It had not been. Instead, the housekeeper had heard him and, in a fright, had thrown a pail of water out the window, drenching the young would be lover beneath. Word had somehow gotten out and it had been a source of considerable amusement for some time.

Johanna tried not to be unkind but it was hard not to tell him to buck up a little. ‘That is a very fetching hat, Pricilla,’ she added untruthfully. Pricilla and her mother had the worst taste in hats. This one looked like a lace bird’s nest, complete with birds, for two tiny feathered robins peeked over the edge of the frothy confection. Johanna sincerely hoped they were not real.

‘Thank you,’ Pricilla replied, a little breathlessly. Her attention seemed to be fixed on Marcus Hathaway, her eyes sliding past Johanna to rest on the new guest with considerable interest. Johanna allowed herself to follow the girl’s gaze for she, too, found Marcus Hathaway to be intriguing.

He is far better looking than I initially thought
, she reflected thoughtfully, glancing at that angular, intelligent face. He was possessed of a wealth of black curls that were unstyled but looked very well on him just the same. Combined with a pair of vivid blue eyes, her rescuer was one of the better-looking men who had come her way and a shiver of surprise rippled through her.
I did not entirely see it before but who would have thought the man would have been so handsome under all that mud?

She recalled the way he had stepped up behind that would be thug, his cool handling of the situation and the look in those watchful eyes.
She
might have known the whole thing was a silly sham but he certainly hadn’t. Clearly he was courageous as well as good looking. While both items were delightful in themselves, it was his air of slight abstraction, along with that quick ready humor that she found most appealing. That and the fact that he was not at all impressed by her beauty. Other females might have found that irksome but Johanna had been lauded for being pretty for as many years as she could remember and it was quite refreshing to have a man, if not ignore her looks, then certainly behave as if they were nothing out of the ordinary.

In spite of the fuss others made of her looks, Johanna was not conceited for she was sensible enough to realize that her face was something outside of her control. She supposed it was far more pleasant to be pretty than plain – certainly, she knew girls who bore this surmise out, Pricilla being one such case – but there was more to her than that, as her grandmother had always told her. A pretty face might allow her to get her way more often than not but it frequently led others to overlook the fact that she was intelligent. It had been a strange discovery, realizing that the two things did not sit easily together with most people even those as fond of her as her father. If she made observations on current events or anything that was not trivial she was regarded rather as a precocious child who had said something clever. The only person who acknowledged that she was far more than her looks was Grandma, the woman who had brought her up and was canny enough to see beneath the surface of most facades.

‘Most men can’t see farther than what’s under their noses, lass,’ she’d said, years before. ‘I know you’re as sharp as Sheffield but I might be the only one who does. You just have to use it well, for a pretty face doesn’t last forever. An’ the man who does win you over… well, he’ll see beneath, sure enough.’

Wise words and Johanna had tried to take them to heart, although sometimes it irked her unbearably to be considered nothing more than a life-sized doll. She knew that many people considered her spoilt and perhaps it was true. As an only child and the last remaining legacy of a woman who had been well loved, it was only to be expected that her family would indulge her. But for somebody who liked to enjoy herself, sometimes it was hard to abide by all the rules. Nice girls did not monopolize the dance floor at assemblies and balls. Nice girls left at least a few men unscathed for other, less fortunate females. But Johanna did not think of such things when she allowed herself to be swept up by the music. It was difficult to resist, when her feet tapped and her body seemed to have a mind of its own. And was it really that bad to enjoy oneself?

Apparently it was. Her high spirits had landed her into all sorts of messes and she knew that the local families regarded her as a little wild. It was, she thought ruefully, hard to behave as others expected. There was nothing finer than riding fast across the moors or dancing every dance for the sheer pleasure of moving.

But there was always that other matter, the one that nobody mentioned but was like a large, ungainly elephant in the room. Polite Society might appreciate her father’s wealth and Johanna’s beauty but they found it hard to forgive the fact that Grandma hailed from an exceeding rich, exceedingly common working class background. Great Grandfather Scruton had been gone for some years now but he had been unashamedly salt of the earth (as her father had chosen to call it). His ever-increasing fortune had seen him aspire to greater things for his daughter and she had married well, to a prosperous tradesman who’d had one foot in the upper classes. The union, in turn, had aspired to even greater heights and here was Johanna, undeniably well bred on her father’s side (for his antecedents could be linked to a line of royalty) and unashamedly wealthy on her mother’s side.

It was never said, of course, but Johanna knew she was expected to marry a man who would take the family to even further heights in the social hierarchy. She might not be able to aspire to a duke (unless he was very much in need of funds) but with her looks and money, she could reasonably be expected to snare a lord.

Which was a very inconvenient expectation.

While she was surveying the stranger with interest, she was aware that Lord Mordern was watching
her
but she refused to look at him. The unpleasant weight of Ennis Mordern frequently made her feel distinctly uncomfortable, his eyes somehow managing to strip the clothes off her body, despite the fact that he had not uttered a single, improper word since he and his sister had come to stay a week before. He didn’t have to say anything; his demeanor was innately suggestive. Johanna doubted he could ask for a cup of tea without making it sound as if he were after something far more salacious. But he had been so very careful, since he had arrived. He was far too interested in attaining the prize he was after to make a slip.

She would have given much to have him gone from the house, he and his equally unlikable sister, Celine Gordon. Unfortunately, Papa thought them quite wonderful. Despite his august family lineage, he knew he had made a social misstep when he had given in to his heart and married Oliue Howeth. Now, he was determined to retrieve the family pedigree as best he could and marry his little girl to a man that was top of the trees, which apparently, Lord Mordern was. The family might have been as rich as Croesus but marrying into money – even for love, for Sir Antony had fallen desperately in love with his Oliue – was a considerable impediment to acceptance in Society, even if the only daughter came with a dowry that would ‘choke a horse,’ as Grandma so delicately put it. Johanna was not short of suitors; she had looks enough to attract even the gentlemen with money of their own. But Papa, curse him, was determined to find her the best possible match, in order to further banish the stigma of Grandma’s lineage.

‘Your children won’t be touched by our – ah – antecedents,’ he’d said when outlining his plans for his daughter’s future. ‘And if not your children, then certainly theirs.’

‘I don’t think I would wish to marry somebody who looks down their nose at Grandma,’ Johanna had objected. After the death of her own mother at the age of seven, Katherine Howeth had raised her. They might have their disagreements – they were both strong willed, after all – but as far as Johanna was concerned, her grandmother was remarkable.

His father had patted her fondly on the cheek. ‘Such an attitude does you credit, my dear. Unfortunately, not everybody thinks as you do. We might know that your grandmother is an excellent woman but Society will not think the same way.’

Which made Society remarkably stupid in Johanna’s opinion. Besides, she was in no particular hurry to marry. Grandma fancied a presentation in London and a grand Season for her only granddaughter but Johanna enjoyed her current life far too much to be enthusiastic about such a plan. She could generally arrange things to her satisfaction at Cloverton Hall. In London she would be taken under the watchful wing of her Aunt Agnes, a formidable woman who saw sin everywhere and preached endlessly about the dangers of all things living and quite a few things that weren’t. A sojourn in the capital in the care of such a woman would be ghastly, for her aunt made no secret of the fact that she though Johanna shockingly indulged. Unfortunately she was the only suitable female available; Grandma, her father had assured her, would never do.

It was a pity. She was inclined to think that, if a man was still determined to marry her after being scrutinized by Katherine Howeth then he would be a brave man indeed, the sort that might truly capture her interest.

Taking the cup that a footman passed to her, she glanced at Marcus Hathaway once more. He was an intriguing creature. What kind of man roamed the highways of England with no purpose other than to see the sights? She was prepared to wager that there was more to it than that. Mr. Hathaway was a mystery and, if there was one thing that Johanna found irresistible, it was a mystery, especially when she sensed his reluctance to expand on his history. There must be a reason for such reticence. Was he pining for a lost love? Escaping debtors or the consequences of a duel? Or perhaps he just enjoyed being a vagabond. There was something intrinsically romantic about all of these things for, while those blue eyes held far too much amusement to be considered brooding, they held something else as well. Perhaps it was her overactive imagination – Johanna knew herself well enough to understand that she possessed one – but she could sense secrets locked away behind the apparently carefree words and she could not help but wonder what they might be.

She had known that her rescuer did not wish to be further burdened by obligation when he had returned her but she had inveigled an invitation anyway, prompted by a desire to keep him within her orbit, if only for a few hours more. The sight of Mordern waiting for her at the top of the steps had been an additional incentive, however. Having another man present had suddenly seemed like an excellent idea and her brief acquaintance with Mr. Hathaway had convinced her that he possessed chivalrous instincts that might stand her in good stead. He might
wish
to continue on his way but he had not been able to leave her to the mercies of a pair of footpads. Perhaps she could use him again, this time as a barrier between herself and the loathsome Lord Mordern. It was well nigh impossible to explain to her father that Mordern made her skin crawl, especially when the man had behaved with perfect propriety. But there was no doubt that he did exactly that so it was hard to trip him up, him
or
his sister Celine…

Johanna did not care for Mrs. Gordon in the least.

The woman was far
too
pleasant, too keen on forging an intimacy with Johanna that seemed to be based on nothing more than that the two of them were females. It was obvious that they had nothing in common and yet Mrs. Gordon irritatingly insisted that they were very alike, akin to two peas in a pod and Papa, curse him, thought the whole thing quite splendid. He adored Mrs. Gordon and enjoyed flirting with her in a gentle, self-deprecating way. Sir Antony Claybourn did not get a great deal of practice locally and, it must be admitted, he did not seem to have the inclination to in the usual course of events but Mrs. Gordon encouraged him shamelessly. Johanna had tried to tell him that she did not like the woman but there was no point; he simply wouldn’t listen. Over the past few days she had become increasingly despondent, as she knew that Lord Mordern was going to ask for her hand and that her father was going to agree. And then things would get exceedingly awkward for Johanna had no intention of marrying such a man. If anybody had bothered to ask her, she would have been more than happy to tell them so. Not that anybody had asked her.