Marguerite Ninian stood staring after the horse and rider until a rise in the land hid them from view. Common sense told her that the stuffy young man had merely been doing what he thought was right, but how ridiculous to carry on as if she were some witless ninny with more hair than common sense! She had been wandering around the Westbury district on her own ever since Mama had finally given up on the “cures” and left her to her own devices.
But he couldn’t be as stodgy as he seemed—not if his comments were anything to go by. It sounded as though he had been soldiering in India or the Iberian Peninsula. She shuddered, wrapping herself in her cloak. What appalling scenes he had described. How had he endured it?
Then she stiffened. Most of the time he had been speaking to her, he had turned his wounded face away. Ha! He was every bit as embarrassed about his scar as she was about her crippled leg. “You don’t practise what you preach, Lord John,” she muttered. She hated two-faced people. She’d had a lifetime of that, of people who professed friendship to her face, then whispered about her affliction behind her back. And Lord John Trewbridge was not only two-faced he was—he was healthy. He had an air of wanting to throw himself into the fray, of wanting to tackle problems head-on and do things.
Whereas she—well, of course she wanted to do things, but she also wanted to hide, to keep away from energetic people who drew attention to themselves. However, if she were a whole person...
As she got near the house, Betsy the downstairs maid came hurrying towards her. “Miss Daisy! Miss Daisy!” Poor city-bred Betsy stumbled over the rough ground, waving her hands like a distracted hen. Betsy thought the outdoors was a dangerous, distasteful place, especially in winter.
Marguerite smiled. “Stay there, Betsy. Do not get your feet wet.”
“Your mother is looking for you, miss. Quick now.”
Marguerite hurried. Heavens, her mother rarely expressed a desire for her company. And before noon, too. What was amiss?
“Look at you, girl. Surely you haven’t been outdoors in this weather?”
Mama had been lying in wait in the foyer.
“Go and change your clothes at once. You are not coming into the drawing room in all your dirt. How you can be so unlike your sisters, I don’t understand. Neat as a pin, all of them, and then there’s you.” Mrs. Ninian’s voice dripped with scorn. “In the drawing room in fifteen minutes please, Daisy.”
Mama sailed off, her rigidly coiffed ringlets not daring to bob beneath her beribboned cap.
Marguerite grimaced. Whatever the problem was, it must be serious. Fifteen minutes! Why, Mama would never take less than an hour to make herself presentable for the drawing room. Of course, Mama’s wardrobe was comprehensive.
Exactly fifteen minutes later, feeling as if she were in the army, Marguerite presented herself for inspection. Lord John would be proud of her.
“Good grief.” Her mother eyed Marguerite’s ensemble. “What do you call that?” she asked, pointing to Marguerite’s unruly hair.
“Betsy and Liza were not available, Mama, so I did it myself.”
“Hmm.” Mama had always been able to imbue a simple word with a wealth of insinuation.
Marguerite tilted her chin and stood her ground. She knew Betsy and Liza would help her if they were allowed to, but Mrs Ninian had long ago decided the servants “had better things to do than pander to the whims of a cripple.” Marguerite was Mrs Ninian’s cross to bear. She was ashamed of her youngest daughter. Marguerite’s affliction was also Mama’s affliction. All Marguerite could do was hold her head high and pretend it didn’t matter.
“If you applied yourself to your needlework, that dress would suit you quite well.”
“I know, Mama. I cannot seem to ply my needle the way Helen and Chloe do. Such a lovely dress too. It used to be Chloe’s but it is too large for me.”
Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying that Chloe is large, Daisy Ninian?”
Oh dear. Chloe was indeed large. She took after Mama in more ways than one.
“No, Mama. Only that I am too small.”
Her mother ignored the comment. “Sit down, Daisy. I wish to talk to you about a letter I have received from my sister.”
Marguerite raised her eyebrows in polite inquiry.
Mrs Ninian clicked her tongue. “My sister Stringworthy—the one who lives near Norwich.”
“Yes?” What on earth was Mama planning? Her nose was almost vibrating with excitement.
“She needs assistance with her children—not a wet nurse of course. They are all breeched. Someone to assist their governess with the youngest children. More of a nurse. I thought of you.” Mrs. Ninian regarded Marguerite with an expectant air, as if she were awaiting praise for her cleverness.
Appalled, Marguerite could think of nothing to say.
“Well, girl, what do you think? You would receive a small income for the next couple of years. By then your sisters will be married and you can help them with their offspring. Or you might become a useful companion to me.”
So she was to be got out of the way till Helen and Chloe had been fired off. Then she would be brought back to be “useful.” Marguerite swallowed the lump in her throat. “Aunt Stringworthy’s children?” She heard her voice rise and struggled to speak more quietly. “The ones who visited here last year and tried to drown the kitchen cat in the pond? The same children who uprooted all the zinnias in the front garden? Dear God!”
“Daisy Ninian! How dare you blaspheme?”
“Anyone faced with raising the Stringworthy children would blaspheme,” Marguerite muttered. “Mama, they are appalling children. You said so yourself.”
“We shall rely on you to make them less appalling. Your aunt was much taken with you, for which you should be grateful. She writes that you entertained the boys very well. And little Cora still asks how you managed to revivify Tibby after her...accident.”
“Cora was the worst of the lot. Mama, please. Surely you cannot imagine I would be of use as a nurse to those devil’s spawn?” She looked down at her hands and whispered, “I would be so far away from Westbury. I might not see you all for years, especially if your sister keeps producing children. H-how many are there now?” she asked with foreboding.
“Let me see.” Mama raised her lorgnette and peered at the letter again. “Apparently there are six. However you would be responsible for the youngest four only. The other two are already under the governess’s aegis.”
“Poor woman.”
Her mother stood up, full of sisterly zeal. “Enough, Daisy. We shall ask your father what he thinks.”
Marguerite’s heart sank. Father was no match for Mama. The only time Papa had prevailed over Mama was when Penelope and Mr. Farningham had asked permission to marry. Mama had been furious when Papa had given his consent, so that instead of having to marry that awful pimply curate who had Mama’s blessing, Penny had wed dear Mr. Farningham. Mama had never let Papa forget it. She dredged it up at every possible moment, prophesying a future of unrelenting doom and penury for the Farninghams. The arguments had been dreadful and Marguerite fully understood why Papa sometimes seemed a little, well...weak.
Her mother remained standing, but this time Marguerite refused to be dismissed. She would not be banished to work as a skivvy for that appalling family without a fight.
If only someone would answer the advertisement she had inserted in the Bath Chronicle. But she’d not had a single reply. Probably because she had no references she could allude to. And because she had mentioned the limp. She’d had to. There was no point in turning up for an interview as a lady’s companion only to be shown the door as soon as she arrived.
Then inspiration struck. She had never traded on her bad leg before, but now was the time to start. “Mama, Aunt cannot have considered. I cannot move fast. What if an emergency arose like...like a fire or something?”
She waited while her mother cogitated. This was often a lengthy process. Mrs. Ninian believed in viewing a problem from every possible angle. She then preferred to discuss it with at least five people, after which she discarded everyone’s advice. Her final decision tended to coincide with whatever she’d wanted to do in the first place.
“Your aunt says that the youngest ones enjoyed their time outside with you, so you must have been active enough for them,” Mrs Ninian said at last.
Marguerite shrugged. “I just invented games for them to play, then watched over them. I could not participate because they were very boisterous.” She allowed a slight plaintiveness to creep into her voice.
“Hmm. We shall discuss this later.” Her mother swept from the room.
Heavy-hearted, Marguerite wandered into the music room and sat down on the piano stool. Heaven help her if she ended up working as a nursemaid for the Dragon of the North. Aunt Stringworthy and Mama were as alike as two peas in a pod. She would be trading one bleak existence for another. But at least here she had a few friends and she could wander at will over the farmland she loved. At the Stringworthy’s she would have no freedom at all.
She frowned, wondering what was behind her mother’s scheming. Perhaps Mama was trying to curry favour with her sister and brother-in-law. Mr. Stringworthy was the owner of a woollen mill and was a very warm man. Maybe Mama was hoping he would sponsor Chloe’s coming out. Now that dear Penny was established, and with Helen so very pretty and accomplished and bound to ‘take,’ Chloe needed to be fired off in a fitting manner.
Her heart sinking, Marguerite picked out a nursery tune with one finger. She loved Papa—of course she did—but his impractical plan to bring out all three daughters together had precipitated this. He refused to understand that Marguerite would never enter a drawing room without receiving expressions of revulsion or, worse still, subtle hints of pity. Mama must have written to her sister to ask for help.
She thought of a pair of turbulent grey eyes and an angry, “Oh, so we’re feeling sorry for ourselves, are we?” and she muttered, “Yes we are, darn you.”
“Did you want me, Miss?” asked Liza from the doorway.
“Oh! No thank you, Liza.”
Drat the man. Now he had her talking to herself. Lord, he’d been angry. And quite right. She had been indulging in self-pity of late. Now that Penny was gone from home, there was no joy in the household. Penelope had been a happy spirit and best of all, she had been more than a match for Mama. But now there was nobody to protect Marguerite from Mama’s bitter barbs or to divert Helen and Chloe from their ceaseless wrangling. No wonder Papa disappeared into his study for most of the day or rode over to see his friends at the Grange.
If she was sent to Norwich, would she ever return to the South of England? She loved the Downs in all their seasons. She was lucky that the Corrigan estate was far enough away to escape her mother’s notice. Sometimes Mr. Berry’s shepherds let her help them with small tasks. Last spring she had even helped with the lambing, but when one of the shepherds mentioned how useful she was, Mr. Berry had put a stop to it. “It won’t do, Miss Marguerite,” he had said. “If your mother was to hear about it she’d be furious, and rightly so. A young lady does not soil her clothes by kneeling in the mud to deliver lambs. I don’t mind you wandering over the estate. The farmers’ wives appreciate your visits. But that’s as far as it goes, Miss Marguerite.”
No doubt the sour Lord John Trewbridge would think the same. But at least he had not recoiled in horror at her French name. Some people, her mother included, had become quite odd about that sort of thing since the Corsican monster began rampaging across Europe. But then, she had the impression that Lord John did not recoil from anything or anyone, French or otherwise.
He’d looked so very unhappy. She’d seen despair in those wintry grey eyes before he had swung his horse around and departed. His experiences must have scarred him both outside and in. She remembered his chalk white face when he’d grabbed hold of his mount. He’d been in agony but she had said nothing. He would have bitten her nose off if she’d given him any sympathy. When he’d tucked her against his shoulder she had heard his indrawn breath and had misjudged him. For a moment she had thought he felt distaste at holding a cripple so close to his body. Then she had realized that after those scenes he’d described, he wouldn’t give a darn about anything as trivial as an ungainly leg. No, that dreadful wound had been paining him.
It had been rather nice being held like that, not quite leaning into him of course, but feeling secure even though she was so high above the ground. In spite of his grim exterior, he was a chivalrous man.
Chivalrous or not, it wouldn’t do her any good to waste time thinking about Lord John Trewbridge. They were as dissimilar as oil and water, and it was unlikely she would ever see him again. Unless a miracle occurred and someone answered her advertisement in the Chronicle, next week she’d be on her way to Norwich.
“Please, someone, answer that advertisement,” she prayed. “I play the piano well, I can sing, I am good at computation and I read aloud even to Mama’s satisfaction. And heaven only knows, I am used to carrying out instructions.”
But you are terrified of meeting new acquaintances, her conscience warned her. Not a good thing for a lady’s companion. And your social skills leave much to be desired.
“Be quiet!” she admonished her conscience. Her vision blurred. Blinking to hold back the tears, she glared at the music book propped open on the stand and viciously attacked Bach’s difficult Peasant Cantata.
****
John arrived home from Fitzy’s in a reflective mood.
“How is young Chester?” the marquess asked, when dinner had been set before them.
John grinned and Edward smothered a laugh. Fitzy loathed his Christian name.
“At first he was devilishly glad to see me, and it was just like old times, although he was shocked at—at the scar. Then his father and mother came in to see how I did, and things changed. It was deuced odd,” John answered.
Three pairs of eyes swivelled his way.
“What do you mean?” Edward asked.
“It took me a while to realize that they had heard about—” John took a deep breath—“about Serena and Spencer. To set them at their ease, I said I knew all about it.” He tried to grin. “Mrs. Fitzwilliam was very angry on my behalf. I had to change the subject in a hurry.”
There was a short silence as a footman took away the marchioness’s soup plate.
“Hmm,” the marchioness said, eyeing a serving platter of boiled duck in onion sauce. “Mrs. Fitzwilliam and I see eye-to-eye on most things.” She nodded her approval to Twoomey and he served her with a few select slices.
“Ottley was there, too,” John commented, “being his usual obnoxious self.”
The marquess glanced up. “I suppose he is battening on the Fitzwilliams,” he commented. “After you left for the Peninsula, his family went under the hatches.”
“Not unexpected,” John commented. “But it’s not all Terence’s fault. His father brought him up to expect the best and I imagine he’s finding it hard to compromise now he has inherited empty coffers.”
The marquess continued, “Because you were friends at Eton I offered him the post of steward here, but he refused.”
John stared at his father. “How odd. He didn’t say a word about it. Why did he refuse? With Mr. Cleary almost ready to retire, it would have been the answer to his prayers.”
The marquess shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I think he was horrified at the idea of hard work. He was barely civil. He has been hobnobbing with Spencer, so perhaps they had a falling-out. How did he seem towards you, John?”
“Well, after he had exclaimed at length over my scar,” here John gritted his teeth, “he was just the same as ever.”
The marquess grunted. “So his disapproval does not extend to you, then.”
John thought about the afternoon he’d spent with Ottley and Fitzy. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “There was some constraint, but then, Ottley always was a secretive, difficult fellow.” He shrugged and changed the subject. “Wonderful dinner, Mama. At this rate I shall be too fat to fit into my uniform when we are recalled.”
“You have a considerable amount to make up, my son. Do they not feed you in the army?” his father asked.
“Oh, we do well, Mac and I. Now that I am one of Hope’s observing officers, I can range far and wide to forage for game. Mac is an excellent cook. He makes roasted rock dove taste like the plumpest quail. Everyone wants to eat with us.”
John tried to make light of the fact that the baggage train staggered along miles behind the army. When it caught up, the food had often been scavenged by local bandits or the starving French, thanks to their leader’s policy of living off the land.
He replaced his knife and fork on his plate. “By the way, Mama, as I crossed Corrigan’s land this morning I met a young woman—”
“You crossed Corrigan’s land?” his mother interrupted.
He looked at her in surprise. “Yes. Why? Is it no longer permitted? I thought we had an arrangement with them.”
The marchioness nodded and said, “We do. The young lady you met would be the youngest Miss Ninian. Rather a sad case. Mr. Berry lets her potter about the farmland since she has a way with animals. If Mrs. Ninian cared a jot about her daughter, she would have groomed her to go about in Society. I doubt the wretched woman has ever bothered to have a surgeon examine Daisy’s lame foot. That encroaching harpy is too busy using her wiles to inveigle her way into decent people’s houses—” here the marquess grinned at John and John smothered a laugh “—and she never takes the youngest girl about with her at all. Just the others.” Lady Trewbridge counted on her fingers. “There’s a rather nice one who married recently. Then there’s a thin, peculiar one with die-away airs and next is a fat one with a loud laugh. Daisy comes last. In every way.” The marchioness sniffed her disapproval.
Although John was amused at his mother’s description of the family, he was irritated that she had not used Miss Ninian’s correct name. “Her name is Marguerite,” he said.
“Same thing,” Edward said, displaying unexpected botanical skills. He grinned as everyone stared at him in surprise.
“I’m amazed no-one has seen fit to have her boots especially made,” John said. “One of our fellows in the 71st had our blacksmith fix different size heels to his boots after a spent ball grazed his hip. It seems to work very well. So...does the dragon woman have a husband?”
“Yes. He never looks well. Of course, being married to her would be enough to give anyone the megrims.”
John realized that Mrs. Ninian must have deeply offended his mother. His mama was the most tolerant of women.
“He is the last of his line,” the marchioness continued. “His father was Laird of Alyth, near Angus, a respected man from all accounts. Then we heard he’d been gaoled and his assets confiscated by the Crown. Treason I presume, or rather, the English version of it. Perhaps he displeased Royalty in some way.”
John grinned. “Trust you to know all the gossip, Mama.”
“Couldn’t avoid it. It was big news when I was growing up. We lived close by at Montrose. The laird’s son had just been married and his Scottish wife divorced him because of the scandal. He remarried straight away. I’m not sure the marriage stands up under English law. Although the girls are perfectly respectable in Scotland, the sticklers here might call them illegitimate.”
John frowned. “Well, I hope it never comes to that. The Ninian estate is in excellent order. I rode over part of it.”
“So you trespassed, did you?” His mother grinned at him across the table.
“Mmm.” John remembered how he had called Marguerite a trespasser. “I took Miss Ninian home. It was freezing out there.”
The marchioness raised her eyebrows. “I see. What did you think of the girl?”
“She is a little termagant.”
“Her Scottish blood, no doubt,” the marchioness said approvingly. “Her life cannot be easy.”
John grimaced, remembering the young woman’s initial painful shyness. How he regretted this morning’s intemperate outburst! But there wasn’t anything he could do to help Miss Ninian. It sounded as though the whole family was at sixes and sevens. It was none of his business.