Samuel Wortham, Viscount Ellery, whistled all the way back to the sprawling brick manor house of Dunnock Park. When he caught sight of a wide-brimmed straw hat moving amidst the tall spires of crimson-speckled foxgloves and bursts of bright blue delphiniums, he took a detour to greet his favorite gardener.
The man in question held a pair of pruning shears in the grip of his gnarled hand and left a colorful clutter of spent blossoms on the ground. “Good afternoon, Father.”
Edwin Wortham, the Marquess of Russford, cast a smile in his direction but continued his task. “How were the fish today?”
“Beautiful,” Sam said, thinking more of the raven-haired fish charmer—with the beguiling greenish blue eyes, sparkling laugh, and shapely legs—than of the fish.
“Good. I have a taste for trout dripping with parsley butter. Your mother has been insisting on too much broth of late, and I am weary of it. How many will we be sampling for dinner?”
“Not a one, I’m afraid,” Sam admitted with a shrug and bent to pick up a lavender Michaelmas daisy crowding the path. “I forgot my pole. Then once I reached the pond, I had no inclination to leave in order to retrieve it.”
His father turned to him, his graying brows furrowing quizzically. “That isn’t like you when you have sport on your mind.”
It was true, for Sam enjoyed hunting and fishing alike—especially the latter, when that elusive pike taunted him with a flash of his spiked fins. Yet when he first spied the beauty wading in the shallows, all other pursuits fled his mind. “I was too busy pondering the truths of fish.”
“Hmm. By that grin you’re wearing, I’d almost think there was a girl involved.”
“Can a man not grin without being besotted?” Sam asked with a laugh, absently plucking off the petals one by one.
“Besotted, eh?” Father’s pale brows lifted like a pair of cathedral arches over all-seeing azure windows. “Now my curiosity is ripe. Have you met someone this very day?”
Sam dropped the naked stem and glanced to the blushing plume poppies near the arbor. He was usually more careful than this. His parents were nearly as eager for him to find a bride as he was. Therefore, whenever a young woman did catch his interest, he took his time, getting to know her character before he ever mentioned her to them.
Unfortunately, thus far Sam’s efforts had led to disappointment.
Early last Season, he’d spoken to his parents about a woman he’d thought to marry. Sam and Miss Appleton shared many of the same interests and seemed to get along well enough in each other’s company. When he broached the topic of marriage, however, she admitted to being in love with another man. Sam had been stunned.
Because of that experience, he had not planned to speak openly about Gemma. Now, however, it seemed he’d cornered himself. “I have. Though I do not wish to spur your hopes.”
Father waggled the pruning shears at him. “If that smile you wear is any indication, you must have your own.”
Was he still smiling? Sam found the answer as he scrubbed a hand over his jaw, taking note of the fissures on either side of his mouth.
Bemused, he shook his head. “You mistake the gesture. This is merely the look of a man who passed a few moments in pleasurable company.”
“What do you know of her?”
“Virtually nothing,” he said quickly, plucking a pointed leaf from the nearest stem and twirling it between his fingers. Yet his statement earned that singular sharp puff of air from deep in Father’s throat that indicated his disbelief. In Sam’s youth, that one sound had conditioned him to confess the entire truth of his escapades. Yes, Father, I was batting rocks into the field—then that sound—and I might have been the one who broke the window in the crofter’s cottage.
Apparently, it still worked. “She is somewhat shy but uncommonly clever, and quite honest as well. She wouldn’t even dare to deceive a fish.”
“And beautiful?”
Sam closed his eyes briefly, replaying the moment when she’d surrendered her smile. He’d been thunderstruck. His breath had caught in his throat, and it had seemed as if there was no distance between them. He could see her features as clearly as if she were lying beside him in the grass and waking him from a dream. “Aye. She has the most striking eyes—a forest green imbued with the deepest blue you can imagine.”
“Surely there’s a bit more to her than a pair of eyes,” his father egged, having a merry laugh at him. Then, suddenly, he began to cough, each new convulsion setting off a series of others. The fit went on and on, his shoulders hunching, and beneath the shadow of his hat, his skin turned ashen.
Alarmed, Sam drew closer, setting his arm around his father for support. “Let us sit on the bench, beneath the shade of the arbor. The afternoon has grown too warm.”
Yet the truth was more difficult to bear.
A year ago, Father had suffered a heart seizure after being set upon by highwaymen just outside of London. Since then, he suffered from exhaustion, shortness of breath, and an overall frailty that cast an ominous pall over the halls of Dunnock Park.
Shortly following the attack, both Father and Mother moved into the dower cottage, which wasn’t necessary since there was ample room in the manor house. But Sam suspected that Father, selflessly, did not want to die in the very bed that his son would occupy. Father even said that his only wish was to see the manor house full of life and Sam happily settled. There was no need to add that he hoped this would happen before it was too late.
Of course, as a healthy man of six and twenty, Sam wanted a wife for his own reasons. But there was no denying that he wanted to honor his father’s request as well.
Sitting on the bench, Father began to regain his breath and color. In the cool shade of the arbor, he stripped off his hat and wiped his brow with a handkerchief, wisps of graying hair receding from his hairline. “Tell me more about this girl. Not for me, of course, but for your mother. You know she’ll want every detail, including the girl’s taste in earbobs. Seems to believe that you can tell a young woman’s character from the jewelry she wears.”
Sam was no fool and eyed his father shrewdly. “You needn’t tell Mother a thing. As I said, there is no cause to put up the bunting. It was only a moment.”
When his father merely waited, with his jaw set and his expression bearing a mask of patience to span a hundred years, Sam expelled a breath and gave in. “I could not tell if she wore earbobs with the way her hair framed her face.”
He could see it now, the lustrous curls that escaped her chignon to lie against her cheek and neck. One fat tendril had snaked down toward the frilled lace edge of her bodice, inviting his mind to imagine taking her hair down, pin by pin, and then her dress, button by button . . .
“And what color was her hair—yellow as those marigold petals or dark as the dirt beneath our feet?”
Sam took a steadying breath. “Much darker and shiny too, like that Arabian we once saw at Tattersalls.”
“Hmm. It sounds to me as if you noticed a good deal about her.” Father might have turned into a fox for the sly grin he gave. “But did you manage to catch her name?”
Gemma. But Sam did not say it aloud. The name and the memory were his to keep. “We were not introduced, as her aunt was on the hill, and they were to depart to the inn at Banfern Glenn.”
Father spluttered, pointing in the general direction of the village with his hat. “But Banfern Glenn is only three miles. Why are you not saddling your horse this instant? Bring that dark-haired beauty and her aunt to dinner this evening. Or better yet, have them stay on for your party.”
When Sam had gone to London for the Season but failed to bring home a bride, he took the advice of a friend and decided to host a lengthy party, complete with gentlemen and eligible maidens with their chaperones. His guests were set to arrive the day after tomorrow.
“It is not that simple.” Certainly, inviting Gemma had entered his mind, but he would like more time to speak with her, to gauge her interests, to know more of her character. And before any of this, he would need an introduction.
“Falling in love with your mother was the simplest thing I’ve ever done,” Father said, leaping ahead a bit. “Marriage ought to start out that way, at least. After all, there’s enough work involved along the way, but loving someone should always be the easy part.”
“Love and marriage? I’ve only just met her,” Sam said with mild censure to his ever-impulsive father. “Besides, by your own example, I’ve witnessed that you love someone by knowing her completely.”
Father scoffed. “I learn something new about your mother each and every day. Keeps me on my toes, that one.” His mouth quirked in a lopsided grin as his gaze drifted to the whitewashed dower cottage. Through the windows of its octagonal solarium, they could glimpse Mother’s form sitting at her quilting rack. “I grant you that it is easier when two people are of the same disposition. You cannot expect a violet to climb an arbor, after all. Thankfully, both your mother and I are like these roses, changing and merging as we grow older. There may have been thorns along the way but there was, and is, plenty of beauty. And at the roots, the heart of it all, is what brought us together in the first place.”
Sam inhaled slowly, trying to remain patient as he explained his process to Father. Again. “That is all I’m attempting to do—find a woman with whom I’m compatible. This is a serious undertaking and requires careful consideration.”
He knew, all too well, what it was like to be mistaken in assessing a young woman’s regard for him. He’d even thought to court Juliet, formerly Lady Granworth. Soon enough, however, he’d had found that—similar to Miss Appleton—her heart had been claimed by another as well.
His experience last Season was an irrefutable lesson in caution.
“Bah. A rose knows another rose in an instant.” Father set his jaw, his lips in a firm line, and looked askance at Sam. “But perhaps you’re more like the orchid, with a need to assess the soil and temperature before you bloom. Heaven help us if you find another orchid who is just as skittish.”
“Harsh words, considering you’ve always believed orchids were too fragile and finicky,” Sam said, mildly wounded. He was only being careful.
Father patted his forearm but with little sympathy. “That’s only because I never had any luck with them. I suppose I’m not patient enough.”
An understatement if ever there was one.
Though, ironically, where Sam usually had patience in abundance, today he was sorely lacking. He couldn’t wait to see Gemma again.
Yet by her own admission, she was only passing through. Likely not someone who would even be able to stay for a party.
Besides, he was busy with preparations. The guests were arriving the day after next, and of the four young women he’d invited, he hoped one of them might become his bride. Overall, his hands were quite full.
So did it matter that he’d been thunderstruck at the pond, when he’d never felt that way before?
Without conscious thought, as if his body were no longer under the control of his mind, Sam stood, put on his coat, and tugged at the cuffs of his sleeves. Then he heard himself say, “I’m going for a ride.”
Apparently, that was his answer.
“There’s a good lad.” Father stood as well, his pruning tool at the ready near the roses. “A man always needs to present flowers when paying a call on his future—” He stopped at Sam’s warning growl, offering a sheepish shrug.
“I’m not paying a call. I just . . . need to clear my head. That’s all.”
Besides, if he were to happen upon Gemma in Banfern Glenn, he wouldn’t give her roses. He’d give her robust, determined blossoms that took root wherever and whenever they pleased.
And he knew just where to find them.