“I thought I might visit John today. Would you care to come, Marguerite?” the marchioness asked.
Marguerite grinned at her ladyship’s casual tone. As if the lady wasn’t chomping at the bit, dying to know what John was up to at his manor house! Every evening at dinnertime the marchioness asked, “What do you think Edward and John are doing now, my dear?”
And each evening the marquess replied, “No doubt they will tell us in due course. They know you are missing them.”
It seemed Lady Trewbridge had decided to take matters into her own hands. She could not go to Eton to check on Edward. It was too far to travel and anyway, Edward would not thank his mother for showing her motherly concern in front of his cronies. So John, being close by, was to receive the benefit of her attentions. Well, Marguerite had no quarrel with that. Those young men were very fortunate to have such a caring mother. Anyway, she was dying to see if John had made any changes yet to Corrigan’s. She wiped her pen. “Yes, please, my lady. I should like to see my old home again, even if it is from a distance.”
And when the Trewbridge carriage deposited them in front of John’s manor house, Marguerite wandered away on her own, her kid half-boots sinking into the mire as she headed down towards the river. She knew the marchioness had a distasteful chore to accomplish and she did not want to be present when her employer informed Lord John about the marriage that was to take place shortly at Trewbridge—a marriage between Miss Serena Blyth and Lord Brechin.
From the farmers’ wives and the ladies at the Grange she had heard all the rumours that Miss Blyth had been squired about by Lord John for a year or more. Then something had happened between them and Lord John, hiding from the world, had joined up. Next thing, the gossips had informed her, Miss Blyth was seen everywhere with Lord Brechin. Marguerite had never met Serena Blyth but she knew a little about Lord Brechin and she did not think Spencer Trewbridge was the sort of man a sensible woman wanted to spend her life with.
Would Lord John attend the wedding, Marguerite wondered? He was tough, tougher than some people gave him credit for. And, she rather thought, tougher than he gave himself credit for. Not that she knew him well, of course, but since she had lived at Trewbridge she had gleaned all sorts of information about him. Of course she would never call him John to his face, but she called him John in her thoughts. Sometimes she admonished herself that she was developing a hero-worship for him because he had not only saved her from a life of drudgery with her mother’s relatives, but had also encouraged the blacksmith to adjust her boots and shoes. Nobody else had ever done so much for her, not even Papa.
Often she wandered through the Trewbridge family portrait gallery, appreciating the fact that these paintings depicted continuity and stability. They were the portraits of a family who had been in their home for three generations. The group portraits, done at intervals of two years, showed the growing-up process of three boys who had matured into three very different individuals.
Spencer always sat aloof, staring straight at the artist. Had he felt as if were the odd man out, or had he sat thus to emphasize his superiority? Edward and John were usually together, laughing, as if they’d just shared a joke. And behind the boys their parents stood, keeping watch over their sons.
Marguerite walked alongside the river, trying to peer through the trees at her old family home. All she could see from this distance was smoke rising from two of the chimneys. Someone was in residence. Of course the Crown would have easily found someone to lease it. She pushed down the lump in her throat. It was a lovely home even if it did not have the feeling of continuity and loving care that Trewbridge had.
“Poor Papa,” she whispered. She turned and made her way back up the slope.
“Come inside, Miss Ninian, and tell us how you think the house could be improved.” Lord John was standing in the foyer of his new home, pride of ownership apparent in his stance. It was good to see him enthusiastic and laughing. She took his out-stretched hand and stepped over the threshold.
“What will you call your home, my lord?” she asked, eyeing the lovely frescoes on the foyer ceiling.
He rolled his eyes. “I have given it much thought, but somehow I cannot marry the names ‘Westbury’ and ‘Trewbridge,’ he explained. “I cannot call it ‘Westbridge’ because the only bridge is down by your old house. And I cannot call it ‘Upavon’ since that’s the original name of the Grange.”
She followed him into a large drawing room with a view of the river in the distance. “What about ‘Trewbury’?” she asked.
John grinned and threw his arms wide. “There! I should have asked you in the first place, Miss Ninian. Why did I not think of that? It shall be called Trewbury Manor.”
In front of his mother he took Marguerite’s hand and bent over it, pretending obeisance. Giggling, she curtsied deeply, managing not to wobble on her bad foot, and murmured, “Any time you need help, my lord, just apply to me.”
The marchioness laughed. “Excellent!” Then she touched her son’s arm. “So will you come to the wedding?”
He sobered. “Yes, Mama. If you think I should.”
“No doubt about it. Who else will entertain your young cousins? You know how they dog your every footstep and ask endless questions. Edward should not have the pleasure of their company all on his own.”
****
John knew when he was beaten. “Oh, what a treat I have in store for me!” he exclaimed, rolling his eyes. “Very well, Mama.” Then he turned to Marguerite. “I have some news for you, Miss Ninian.” He gave her an edited version of his visits to Mr. Norrie and Mrs. Ninian.
He had tracked down Mr. Norrie to some dreary chambers beside the Herald’s office in Doctors’ Commons. It was as he had supposed. Miss Ninian’s mother had browbeaten and irritated the solicitor to the point where the poor man was ecstatic to relinquish the reins of administering the estate to anyone who would keep her off his doorstep. He had greeted John with enthusiasm. “I am very pleased to see you, my lord. Very pleased indeed. I assumed you would not be returning for some time yet. Mrs. Ninian gave me to understand...” He had trailed away, realizing that he was about to express words better left unsaid.
“Hoped I’d be killed on the Peninsula, did she?”
“Er—” Mr. Norrie patently did not know how to continue.
“Do not concern yourself, Mr. Norrie. Mrs. Ninian and I are old adversaries. I understand. As you can see, I have sold out. Now, what needs to be done?”
Mr. Norrie had relaxed a little and they sat down to discuss Mr. Ninian’s various bequests.
When John called upon Mrs. Ninian later in the day, he had kept the meeting on a formal basis. Give Mrs. Ninian an inch and she would take not an ell or a mile, but more like a league. He had let the reins slip a little however when she had said, “Perhaps we should share out Daisy’s portion. After all, while she is with the dear marchioness, she has no need of—”
Furious, John had interrupted her with “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Ninian? Did I hear right?”
Fighting to the last, Mrs Ninian had sniffed and twitched her skirts. “And I fail to see why my husband left a bequest to Penelope. That hopeless young man she married should—”
John had put the bank draft down on an occasional table beside him and bowed. “Good morning,” he’d managed and turned on his heel. Thank goodness Mrs. Ninian was not able to afford a butler. He had dumped his coat and hat on a chair in the foyer on his way in. He scooped them up and beat a hasty retreat before he was tempted to say something he shouldn’t. It had been a close-run thing.
“So now that everything is settled, I was able to bring your pin money with me, Miss Ninian,” he explained to Marguerite.
She looked up at him with those expressive eyes and simply said, “I am much obliged to you, sir.”
Yes, she suspected her mother would have withheld her portion if not for John. He could tell from her awkward manner, in the way her eyes shifted from his and the hunching of her shoulders. She stuffed the folded banknotes in her reticule without counting them, and then, as if unable to help herself, walked to a far corner of the living room and opened her reticule again.
John and his mother looked at each other.
There was a short silence, then Marguerite turned to face them. “I have never in my life held so much money,” she whispered, her eyes wide.
The marchioness smiled. “You shall have more when your quarter’s wages are paid, my dear.”
“Believe me, you will earn your wage,” John interpolated, grinning.
His mother tapped him on the shoulder with her parasol. “Dreadful boy. Do not heed him, my dear. I have not so far been an ogre, have I?”
“It’s early days yet,” John prophesied.
Marguerite grinned.
“I think,” the marchioness declared, “it is time for us to go home. We shall see you at Trewbridge on Wednesday, John.”
John smiled wryly. “Your visit achieved its aim, Mama.”