Chapter Two

 

Sarah, worn out by the rigors of the day, excused herself and hurried off to the peace and quiet of her bedchamber, leaving the marquess and his lady to vent their frustration on one another. The marchioness was first, turning to her husband, who was pacing furiously. A frown of annoyance wrinkling her smooth white forehead, she inquired sharply, “How could you have let this happen, Harold?”

The marquess stopped dead in his tracks. “I?” Her husband exploded. “How could I have known that the old ...” He controlled himself with an effort. “How could I have possibly dreamt that someone would do something so preposterous, so, so... highly improper?”

Rosalind raised delicate brows, “Why, naturally I had assumed that as a man of affairs you had seen that all was suitably arranged.”

“I assumed that it was. Besides, what could I do to avert such a disaster, a disaster I could not possibly have foreseen? Should I have demanded to see the will? You know how impossible that would have been. You know what she was like— a more clutch-fisted, closemouthed ...”

“But you are a man, Harold; men are supposed to know about such things. As head of the family you should have seen to it,” his wife continued firmly but more calmly. Really, sometimes Harold was such a child. Rosalind, now that she had gotten over the initial shock, remained outwardly cool and collected. No matter how much she was seething inside, she knew it did no good to become angry. If she was to get Harold to secure the fortune for them, she must remain unruffled and think it all through. Besides, frowning pulled at one’s face so that it was bound to become wrinkled. At the moment she could quite cheerfully have murdered her spouse for failing to make certain that the one thing that had made him acceptable as a husband for Rosalind Tredington was the fortune he stood to inherit. There must be some way out of this disaster. Rosalind’s brain worked furiously.

“But, Rosalind,” her injured husband protested, “you know how Lady Willoughby was; she was an independent old Tartar. How was I to question her about such things?”

“If you had asserted your authority in the proper way, this never would have happened, but you were afraid of her.” Rosalind shrugged gracefully and raised a slim white hand to her aching forehead.

The accuracy of this statement was undeniable. Harold flushed a brilliant red and bit his lip before replying, “Well, we shall have to make the best of it. There is nothing to be done. Knowing Lady Willoughby, I am certain she was most thorough in seeing to the provisions in her will.”

“No, Harold,” Rosalind contradicted him resolutely, “you will see to it that we are not made to suffer from such outrageous eccentricity on your grandmother’s part, even if she is dead.”

“But how will I do that?”

His wife draped herself in a more picturesque fashion across the back of the settee and gazed out the window at the vast expanse of neatly clipped lawn. “I am sure you will think of something,” she murmured languidly.

Harold resumed his pacing, his brow knitted in agonized concentration. The Marquess of Cranleigh was not a clever man. He had succeeded as much as he had in his own little world mostly because he was the Marquess of Cranleigh and somewhat because he could be counted upon to carry out the tedious little details of schemes dreamed up by minds considerably brighter than his own. He was a loyal and dogged follower, slavishly devoted to the twin principles of pride and respectability—a quality that his wife and the leaders of his party exploited to the utmost. This was the most damnable and exasperating of situations, he fumed to himself as he followed the border of the carpet, executing a sharp turn as it made a corner. And the worst of it was that he could see no possible way out of it. Knowing Lady Willoughby, he was certain that she had tied it all up to a nicety and there was no possibility of altering it.

Rosalind stole a glance at her husband, sighing gently. Harold was a fool, but he was her fool, and she was not about to allow him to give up a fortune without a fight. Summoning a smile to her lips, she regarded him with proper wifely fondness and laid a hand on his arm as he passed her. “Yes.” She nodded. “I can see that you are thinking the same thing I am thinking.” She nodded again approvingly.

“Am I?” Occasionally, just occasionally, Harold had the uncomfortable feeling that his beautiful wife was a good deal brighter than he was. Of course she was as lovely as any woman he had ever seen, and such a witty and flirtatious conversationalist that the cleverest men in his particular set enjoyed talking to her. He was proud of that; however, the suspicion that she might possibly grasp more than he did of what was going on made him most uneasy. It was only the brief, uncomfortable thought of the moment, quickly dismissed as he looked down into the dark eyes so full of admiration and at the bewitching dimple that appeared as she smiled encouragingly at him.

“Yes,” she continued. “It really is time Sarah was respectably married and, since she refuses to have a Season”— here Rosalind conveniently forgot her own notable lack of enthusiasm for having Sarah as a charge upon her in London—”it should be someone from here in the country.”

“Richard,” Harold breathed as a sly look crept into his eyes.

Rosalind mentally congratulated herself. Once again she had proven herself capable of leading the most obtuse of all men to a conclusion. “How clever of you, my love, the perfect solution!” A self-satisfied smile hovered on the beautifully sculpted lips. “I leave it to you to show him where his duty lies. After all, he and Sarah have been companions for so long he could hardly not offer for her. If he did not, it would appear after all this time as though he had been trifling with her affections.” And, she thought, it would be a good deal easier to push her recalcitrant brother into marriage with an heiress he knew than it had been during her previously unsuccessful attempts to throw her sporting, mad sibling in the way of those who graced fashionable ballrooms.

Having once more done her utmost to extricate her husband from his own blind stupidity—he should have seen the need to be more conciliatory to the old bat while she was alive—Rosalind moved on to the next problem. “It really is too bad of Lady Willoughby to leave us before the Season is quite ended.” Rosalind pursed her lips in annoyance. “Black is my least becoming color, and I had quite planned a soiree and a musicale or two before we left town.” The sigh and look that accompanied this pronouncement were worthy of an early Christian martyr. “I daresay we shall just have to make the best of it by offering some sort of entertainment down here.”

Harold looked up in some alarm. Pompous and overbearing he might be in his own little part of the world, but he was not confident enough of his position in the ton even to think of straying from the path of strictest propriety. But his wife was not about to be deprived of all the delights of London as well as her usual crowd of handsome admirers. “Nothing extravagant, mind you,” she cautioned. “It would be just a small party of a few select people. After all, we simply must do something for the Duke of Coltishall, who has done so much to introduce you to all the important members of the party. He will bring his charming daughter, and we simply cannot leave her without any young bucks to dance attendance on her. I believe that the Chevalier d’Evron is a great favorite, and I know we could count on Lord Farringdon to do the pretty. After all, Alistair is a good friend of Richard’s as well,” Rosalind continued smoothly, adding the names of her two most dashing admirers to the guest list.

“Well...” Her husband still hesitated.

“And I believe we could even persuade Lord Edgecumbe. He was most devoted to me this Season.” Rosalind threw in her trump card with a triumphant smile. Her husband had been trying unsuccessfully for years to attract the notice of this powerful politician; it had taken one dazzling smile from Rosalind and a few minutes of conversation with him at the Duchess of Coltishall’s rout to captivate him entirely. A brilliant man, Lord Edgecumbe had been forced by pecuniary circumstances to marry a dull but wealthy woman who was far more interested in her dogs and her horses than she was in her clever husband whom she encouraged to stay in London, preferring that a man so notably lacking in the skills requisite a country gentleman not embarrass her with his ineptitude on the hunting field. Scorned in his own home for his lack of wealth and athletic prowess, Lord Edgecumbe had been easily susceptible to the charms of a sympathetic female, especially one as lovely as the Marchioness of Cranleigh.

Though not attracted to him in the least, for physically he was a most unprepossessing specimen, Rosalind had instantly recognized Lord Edgecumbe’s power and influence in political circles and immediately cultivated his acquaintance, adding him to her burgeoning circle of admirers. Her efforts had been swiftly rewarded as men who had hitherto ignored her husband stopped in to discuss the latest news from Parliament with him, and invitations soon flowed in from some of the ton’s most noted political hostesses.

Harold beamed. “An excellent scheme, my dear. We may perhaps also convince his wife to visit. She detests London, but Cranleigh is sure to please her. I hear that she is enormously wealthy. Certainly she comes from one of the most ancient families in Buckinghamshire, and her brother, Lord Ware, is not without influence in Parliament.” Harold rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation. “Yes, I feel that she could also be a powerful ally. I am sure you will captivate her as you have done her husband.”

Rosalind had not the least notion of wasting her time or her considerable charm on a mere female, especially some rustic who had not the slightest influence in the fashionable world, but she did not want to say anything that could threaten her plans for filling the house with her own particular flirts. The more people she invited, the less obvious would be the presences of the Chevalier d’Evron and Alistair, Lord Farringdon, Earl of Burnleigh. Just the thought of Lord Farringdon’s athletic figure and the chevalier’s mesmerizing dark eyes caused her pulse to quicken.

“I shall do my best, my lord, but from what Lord Edgecumbe tells me, she is a rather quiet woman, unaccustomed to going about much. Perhaps she would feel more comfortable with Sarah.” There, let her sister-in-law earn her keep. After all, someone as bookish as Lady Sarah Melford had no use for gentlemen anyway, and as long as Rosalind was forced to endure the irritating presence of someone who had no use for the vast fortune she had just inherited, that person might as well be useful.

“Good idea.” Harold nodded, “It will keep her from moping about the house.”

“I shall tell her this instant so that she may be of some help,” his wife replied, rising gracefully, “and then I shall send out notes to the proper people.” Glad to have the prospective gaiety to occupy her mind, Rosalind glided off in search of her sister-in-law.