Two

“I must remain calm,” Lady Harriet muttered warningly to herself, and she let her eyes dwell for a moment on the enchanting picture her daughter made as she stood framed in the doorway. An artist would have found the girl striking at any time, but now, with her eyes sparkling with anger, her shiny brown curls peeping out from beneath a completely fetching bonnet, and her cheeks pink from either the November wind or her reaction to the bit of overheard conversation, an artist would be bound to find her almost breathtaking. Harriet had heard more than one smitten gentleman describe Anne’s eyes as “speaking” and her nose as “perfection itself.” (Of course, Lady Dabney had once remarked that Anne’s mouth was rather too full in the underlip, but Lady Dabney’s daughter was as plain as a sparrow and broke out in spots at the slightest provocation, so what could one expect from the envious old cat?) As far as Lady Harriet was concerned, Anne’s mouth was as enticing as her other features.

The underlip in question was, at this moment, rather too much in evidence. Peter, not blinded by motherly affection, recognized the expression instantly. “Why are you standing there pouting?” he asked, peering at her through his spectacles in brotherly disapproval.

Anne surveyed him coldly. “I do not pout,” she said imperiously.

“Then what is it you’re doing that makes your underlip stand out like that?” he asked, undaunted.

“I am merely waiting for an answer to my question. Why, Mama, were you discussing my affairs with Lady Claybridge behind my back?”

“Anne, dear, do come in and sit down. I cannot be easy while you stand there glowering at me. And never mind the Claybridge matter now. I have some other news that I’m afraid may be even more upsetting to you. Here. Read this! But first, be sure to tell yourself to remain calm.” And she handed the letter to her stepdaughter.

Anne pulled off her gloves, tossed them on a chair and scanned the letter. “I don’t see anything in this to upset me,” she said, looking up at her stepmother candidly. “There’s nothing terribly shocking in the fact that an old man who was subject to apoplectic attacks has died. I’m sorry, Mama, if you’re grieved, but Uncle Osborn never did anything to earn my affection.”

“What ungrateful children I have reared, to be sure,” Lady Harriet said with mild disgust. “Who do you think provided you with the niceties of life—even the very elegant bonnet you wear at this moment?”

“Oh, that!” Anne dismissed a lifetime of largesse with a scornful wave of her hand. “Who cares for such things? You would not want me to sell my affection for a … a mess of potage? I didn’t like him, and I will not wear the willow for him.”

“Hear, hear,” Peter said supportively, grinning at his sister in approval. “I must admit, Anne, that you’ve quite a bit of pluck, for—”

“—for a girl!” she finished for him, responding to his grin with a quick, affectionate smile.

“You both are impossible,” Harriet declared disapprovingly. “Your attitudes are not only improper—they are positively shameful. I’ll admit your uncle was something of a curmudgeon—”

“Something of a curmudgeon? Really, Mama, even you must admit that Uncle Osborn was a brittletempered, puffed-up blackguard!” Anne declared.

“At his best!” Peter added teasingly.

“And positively apoplectic at his worst,” Anne went on.

“Under the circumstances, that is a dreadful thing to say!” poor Harriet remonstrated.

“But true,” Anne insisted. “At least, that’s how he was whenever we saw him—”

“Which was not more often than once in two years,” Peter said.

“And, Mama, I once heard him say that you set up his bristles. You, who never said an unkind thing to him!”

“And he never bothered to invite us to dine with him—not once in the last decade!”

“And when we did see him, he’d kick up a dust if we so much as giggled in his presence—”

“And remember, Mama, how he fell into a pucker when you invited him to dine with us and then had no Madeira for him to drink?”

“And he never condescended to dine with us again—”

“Stop!” Lady Harriet threw up her hands. “Very well, I shall admit he was a curmudgeon. But all this has nothing to say to the nub of the matter, which is that we are left without a groat.”

“Without a groat?” Anne asked in surprise.

“Not one,” her stepmother answered, the tears filling her eyes again.

“Oh, dear. That is a problem,” Anne murmured, chastened.

Lady Harriet sniffled into her handkerchief. “Now do you understand why I’m so distraught?”

“I daresay I had better understand,” Anne admitted, putting her arm comfortingly around her mother’s shoulders. “I think I may even shed a tear or two myself.”

Peter looked from one to the other in disgust. “Confound it, Mama, and you, too, Anne … it’s not as if we were destitute.”

“We are almost destitute,” his mother said lugubriously. “I don’t even know if we’ll have the means to send you to Oxford next year.”

Now it was Peter’s turn to be taken aback. Entering Oxford had been his dream for years. Most young gentlemen attended the university because society expected it or parents demanded it, but some few, like Peter, actually welcomed the scholarly life. Peter had no talent for sporting pursuits, and no taste for the gambling, the drinking and the carousing that most young men of his age and station seemed to enjoy. He had never even considered an alternative to life at Oxford. There was no other world he wanted. As he met Anne’s eyes, he lowered his own so that she would not read the sudden fear that he knew was reflected there. “No … money for Oxford?” He could barely say the words.

“Nonsense, Mama,” Anne said with what she hoped would be reassuring firmness. “I’m certain that something can be contrived …”

“Can it? I really can’t see what—” Harriet began doubtfully.

“We can use the small legacy from my mother!” Anne said in sudden inspiration.

Peter adjusted his spectacles manfully, picked up his book and rose in offended dignity. “You surely don’t imagine,” he declared, “that I would take your money!”

“Of course you will,” she insisted warmly, looking up at him with earnest affection. “I shall have no need of it, especially after Arthur Claybridge and I are married.”

Lady Harriet caught her breath and took a quick look at her stepdaughter’s face. “Anne, you must be practical. You and Lord Claybridge …” She hesitated, wondering how to soften this additional blow to her beloved girl’s prospects.

“What about Lord Claybridge, Mama?” Anne asked, arrested.

Lady Harriet pressed her feet flat on the floor and twisted her hands in her lap. With her breathing in strict control, she said firmly, “You and Lord Claybridge will never marry. I’m sorry, dearest, but it is out of the question.”

Anne jumped to her feet. “But, Mama, why?”

“Oh, my poor dear, don’t you know? The Claybridges are almost as deep in the suds as we are! Mathilda Claybridge confided to me today that her husband’s gambling debts have left their estate much encumbered. They are relying on Arthur to make an advantageous match. That tiny legacy from your mother scarcely qualifies you. So you see, my dear, a marriage between you and Lord Claybridge can never be.”

Anne stared at her stepmother in disbelief. “This can’t be true! Arthur has told me nothing of this!”

“You see, dearest, until today, there was the hope (even if only a faint one) that Osborn would deal generously with you—with us all! But now … I hate to say this, Anne dear, but now our only hope is for you, too, to make a good match.”

Anne sank into the nearest chair. “I cannot believe that our circumstances can have altered so drastically overnight.”

“But they have,” Harriet said hollowly. “The fortune that has been keeping us secure and comfortable all these years is now in the hands of my American nephew.”

Anne and Peter exchanged troubled glances. “Yes,” Anne said thoughtfully, “I can see now that we have much to think about.”

There was a long moment of brooding silence. At last Peter’s voice broke through the gloom. “We needn’t fall into the dismals yet awhile,” he suggested bravely. “After all, the heir is not even here in England. At least, not yet.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Anne agreed, brightening.

“Why, with the tensions between our government and America so great at this time, the fellow may not be able to come to England at all!” Peter pointed out hopefully.

“What tensions?” his mother asked.

“Don’t you pay any attention to politics, Mama? The Americans have been hinting that they may throw their support to the French. Napoleon, you know, has been trying to entice them to cut off intercourse with us again, and it looks as if he may be succeeding. I understand he sent the American President a letter last summer—it’s known as the Cadore letter, I believe—in which he promised the Americans all sorts of shipping concessions. Of course, if they take Napoleon’s word for anything, they’re nothing but fools. But Mr. Madison is a great lover of the French, I hear—”

“Who’s Mr. Madison?” Harriet asked.

Peter threw his mother a pitying glance. “The American President, of course. As I was saying, Mr. Madison is said to favor the French, so the tensions between us and the Americans are quite strained at the moment.”

“Are you saying, Peter,” his sister asked interestedly, “that there may be another war with America?”

“No, I very much doubt that things will go that far, but there very likely will be a declaration of non-intercourse from the Americans (as there was once before) which will very severely limit American shipping to England.”

Lady Harriet’s worried look lightened perceptibly as the import of Peter’s words sank in. “Do you really think it is possible, then, that the new heir may not come?”

Peter shrugged, but Anne nodded eagerly. “Of course it’s possible!” she exclaimed enthusiastically.

“Let’s not fly into alt, my dear,” Peter cautioned sensibly. “I only suggested a possibility. A possibility is not a probability, you know.”

“I know, I know,” Anne assured him cavalierly, “but so long as the new heir doesn’t show himself, we need not feel depressed. I see no reason to fall into the vapors because of something that may not even come to pass. Until the new Viscount manages to find his way across the ocean—if he ever does—we may go on as we always have.”

“I don’t know,” Lady Harriet said dubiously. “I shall have to speak to Mr. Brindle about the details of our present financial situation. But I must remind you, Anne dear, that you cannot go on as you always have, no matter what Mr. Brindle tells me.”

“What do you mean, Mama?”

“I mean that you are no longer to be permitted to enjoy the company of Lord Claybridge. I’m sorry, love, but Mathilda was quite firm on that point.”

“Oh, pooh,” Anne said with an insouciant wave of her hand which seemed to dismiss Lady Claybridge’s strictures from the very air. “Who cares what she says. Arthur is of age and in full possession of his titles. He has no need to jump at his mother’s commands.” Somehow the optimism engendered by Peter’s political analysis would not be dampened, and Anne went on with her cheerful hopes for their futures. “Life is full of surprises, is it not?” she pointed out airily. “Why, anything may happen! The new Lord Mainwaring may not come, and we may be given the entire Mainwaring fortune! Then Peter could go to Oxford without a care, you, Mama, would be secure for life, and I should be able to marry Arthur with even his mother’s blessing.”

“On the other hand,” Peter interjected, wishing to keep his sister from putting too many hopeful eggs into a very fragile basket, “the new Viscount may very well manage to find his way to England and make his claim to the inheritance.”

“Yes, he may. We must not blind ourselves to the possibilities,” Lady Harriet cautioned. “A fortune like the Mainwarings’ is not likely to go a-begging.”

“But you know, Peter, that American ships have difficulty reaching here in these times,” Anne insisted, “even when the political climate has been less strained. Certainly, now, it will be close to impossible.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“There! Then there is good reason for optimism.”

“I suppose so,” Peter agreed, wishing to do his part to dispel the gloom which had enveloped them. “It is even possible that the news from Mr. Brindle about Uncle Osborn’s death may never even reach the American shores.”

Anne clapped her hands in pleasure. “That’s true! There will be the same difficulty for a British ship to reach an American port. See, Mama? There are many reasons for hope. As I’ve said, anything may happen! The news may never reach him … or he may not be able to book passage across the ocean … or, even if he does, why …” She smiled widely as a new possibility came into her mind. “… why, if we have any luck at all, the fellow may drown at sea!”

And on that happy thought, they went upstairs to dress for dinner.