He obeyed. “You look very well, Ju.”
“Why should I not? Pregnancy is not a disease. Oh, don’t poker up, Ben! You cannot consider it improper to speak of my condition to my own brother.”
Benedict gave her a rueful smile which transformed his austere face. “No, of course not.”
“Especially after you helped me through the last months with Timmy, when Faulk had to go to Vienna.”
“How is Timmy?”
“Flourishing. Learning his ABCs already. You will go up to the nursery, will you not? He’d be sadly let down if he knew you had called without visiting him. His favourite uncle!”
“The effect of bribery. As a matter of fact, I’ve brought him a cuckoo whistle,” he added gruffly. “I hope he’ll not drive his nurse mad with blowing on it.”
Juliet laughed. “Probably. But what brings you to Town, Ben? No, don’t tell me: either business or a debate in the House.” What a pity he did not live further from London, she thought, not for the first time.
Without any desire to cut a figure in politics, Benedict, Viscount Clifford, took his parliamentary duties seriously. If it weren’t so easy to come up for a day or two, he’d be forced to spend the Season in Town, and he might even come to enjoy the amusements of the Polite World.
As it was, simply because attendance was expected of him as a member of that world, he endured the occasional ball, rout, card party, or ride in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour. Only concerts and the theatre aroused any enthusiasm, though he did take pleasure in evenings at his club with political cronies.
“There’s to be another debate on climbing boys,” he told her.
“Faulk says it’s prodigious eccentric of you to go into battle for chimney sweeps’ brats,” she said incautiously.
His expression became stony. “Not at all. Many members of both Lords and Commons feel as I do about the appalling suffering. We just haven’t been able to muster a majority yet.”
“But you will,” she hastened to assure him, filled with remorse. How could she have come to tease him on that subject of all others?
To be eccentric was the worst sin in Benedict’s book. Their parents had exhausted several generations’ allowance of eccentricity. The late Lord and Lady Clifford, perennial butt of the gossips, laughingstock of the Ton, had abandoned home and family to explore the world. After surviving Africa, China, the East Indies, the Americas, they met their deaths in a flash flood in the Great Australian Desert, their ignominious end immortalised in caricature by Gillray.
Juliet had compensated for their desertion by seeking security in an early marriage to an older man, of whom she had fortunately grown excessively fond. Benedict had responded to their notoriety with a rigid adherence to convention. His aim in life was to be respectable, staid,
ordinary
.
His manners were formal; his dress impeccable without the least hint of dandyism; his thick brown hair cut in a severe Brutus crop—no casual Windswept for him. His friends he chose from among the highest sticklers, those who eschewed any form of unconformity. He had concentrated his considerable energies on his long-neglected estate. The introduction of carefully chosen modern agricultural methods resulted in his rents increasing annually without the least hardship for his tenants.
He was altogether admirable, but he never relaxed except with his little nephew. Even by Benedict’s stern standards, nothing a small child did could be considered eccentric.
In a roundabout way, Juliet realised, his love for Timmy explained his concern for sweeps’ boys. Still, she wished he’d take life just a little less seriously.
“Heaven forbid you should have come to Town in search of pleasure,” she said with a sigh.
“Well…” He hesitated, self-conscious, smoothing the sleeve of his perfectly smooth blue morning coat.
“What is it, Ben? You
are
going to stay awhile? My dear, that’s splendid. Now let me see, I can procure invitations—”
He held up his hand. “No, no, wait. The fact of the matter is, I’ve decided it’s time I became a Benedick.”
“But you already are— Don’t laugh at me like that, you horrid wretch. I’m not a complete featherhead. You’re talking about
Much Ado about Nothing
? Oh, Ben, you are going to be married? Who is it?”
“That’s what I’ve come to consult you about. There is no one eligible at home, and I’ve never met a female in London I could wish to wed. I don’t want a frivolous miss fresh from the schoolroom, nor a worldly widow. I’d like you to introduce me to someone suitable so that I can go straight to her guardian for permission to address her without all the Marriage Mart fuss and bother first.”
Juliet was dismayed. To be sure, he needed an heir, and nothing could be more conventional than a marriage of convenience. Yet she had always nursed a secret hope that one day he’d meet a woman who would take him out of himself. Besides, it was a huge responsibility to heap upon her.
“You’d trust my judgement to that extent? But I have not the least notion what sort of wife you
do
want.”
“‘Rich she shall be, that’s certain; wise, or I’ll none; virtuous, or I’ll never cheapen her; fair, or I’ll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God.’ But above all, Ju, what I’m looking for is simply a conformable wife.”
A conformable wife! What he thought he wanted was someone as ruled by propriety and convention as himself, but there were chinks in his armour. How many gentlemen, asked what they wanted in a bride, would or could spout Shakespeare? He’d be bored to tears by a conformable wife.
Rich, wise, virtuous, fair, mild, of good discourse, an excellent musician—forget the conformable part. “Ben, I do believe I have already hit upon the very person: Lady Eleanor Lacey.”
“Lacey? Who is she?”
“Lord Derrington’s sister. She was my dearest friend at school, and we’ve always kept up a correspondence.”
“She’s your age? Why have I never met her? Why isn’t she married? Though I don’t insist upon beauty, I don’t care to face an antidote across the breakfast table every morning.”
“Nell made her come-out when I did, then her mother died and she took over running the household for her father. She comes up to Town for brief visits but she never had a second Season. I must say, she has always seemed perfectly contented. She prefers the country.”
“That is something in her favour. Derrington? Ah, yes, the Lacey Stables. The old earl died some eighteen months ago, did he not?”
“Yes, so she kept house for her brother instead, until he married a few months since.”
Ben gave her a shrewd look. “And now lady Eleanor’s nose is out of joint because she has to give precedence to her sister-in-law.”
“Nell would never be so petty! Though I do think it must be difficult when she has been mistress of the household for seven or eight years. Heavens, how old that makes me feel!”
“At any rate,” he said impatiently, “you believe she is no longer so contented with her lot that she is unwilling to marry. She sounds suitable. I shall have to meet her before I make an offer, of course.”
Again Juliet was dismayed by his cold-blooded approach. “You may go down to Brantwood with the excuse of meeting a few carriage-horses before you make an offer on
them
,” she snapped.
“An excellent notion. In any case, I daresay I shall have to purchase a barouche or landau and pair for my coachman to drive Lady Eleanor about in—if she proves acceptable. I’ll write to Derrington today. And now, my dear, I’ll pay my duty visit to the nursery. Thank you for your help.”
Juliet glared at his oblivious back as he strolled from her boudoir. Her only consolation was that Nell was free to refuse him.
* * * *
Nell struggled to keep her face blank as Phyllis’s peevish voice besieged her. That’s what it was, not an assault to be repulsed, but a siege to be endured. How
could
Bertie have married the woman?
“…And his letter says most particularly that he looks forward to meeting his sister’s dearest friend, so it’s perfectly obvious he has more on his mind than carriage horses.” Phyllis laughed with a ghastly roguishness. “He is just of an age to wish to be setting up his nursery.”
Where Phyllis was concerned, Lord Clifford’s supposed desire to find a bride was pure wishful thinking, fuelled by her own desire to rid herself of her sister-in-law. Unfortunately, Nell knew she was right. Juliet’s letter had disclosed her brother’s intentions, as well as promising to take no offence should Nell refuse him.
Juliet might forgive a refusal, but Phyllis never would, nor would she ever let Nell forget it. Unless she positively disliked the man, she would accept his offer. At six-and-twenty she was far too old to dream of love, and Brantwood was no longer a haven.
She glanced sadly round the pretty, comfortable morning room, its flowered chintzes bright in the April sunshine. The new Lady Derrington’s plans for it included sphinxes, black lacquer, palm trees, and faux bamboo.
“There is nothing to be done about your height,” Phyllis said discontentedly. “It will never do to hunch your shoulders. You must endeavour to remain seated as much as possible when in his company. As for your hair, that may be hidden under a cap. How fortunate you are more than old enough to be putting on caps.”
“Why on earth should I hide my hair?” Nell demanded, shaken out of her apathy by the attack on her only vanity.
“Gentlemen abominate red hair.” She tossed her own golden curls. As a bride of a few months, she had not yet taken to caps herself. “We shall have a cap or two specially made for you to hide every wisp. Of course, while he is here you will read only the most respectable novels and light verse—no Byron, and no philosophy! Gentlemen abominate a bluestocking. And none of your political talk. It is quite shocking the way you will be always trying to persuade Bertie with your radical fancies.”
“Hardly radical, merely reformist.”
“I am sure no
lady
knows the difference. You must play for Lord Clifford, that goes without saying. Your performance upon the pianoforte is really quite adequate, my dear Eleanor. But pray avoid that horrid, noisy, new German composer whose music you recently received.”
“Avoid Beethoven?” she asked, surprised.
“Far too
passionate
,” said Phyllis delicately. “Not at all ladylike. Haydn is much more decorous. Which reminds me, on no account must you drive your dog-cart about the countryside. A gig with a single placid horse is acceptable, provided you stay within the park. A dog-cart is a gentleman’s vehicle, and to take a lively pair on the public roads is not at all proper, as I have previously had reason to advise you.”
“I don’t own a gig,” Nell pointed out, “nor is there a single nag in Bertie’s stables I should describe as placid.”
“There will be no need for you to drive anywhere while Lord Clifford is here. If you require exercise, a stroll in the shrubbery will suffice—none of your cross-country rambles! Of course, you will leave the parish visiting to the vicar’s wife. One must be charitable, but it is quite beneath the dignity of the sister of an earl actually to call upon labourers and people of that sort.”
“If someone has need of me, I shall go. Besides, a stroll in the shrubbery may conceivably suffice me for a few days, but it will not do for Maera.” She reached down to fondle the ears of the shaggy beast stretched in watchful repose beside her chair.
“One of the stableboys may exercise that horrid great mongrel of yours. It will have to be confined to the stables in any case. The only unexceptionable dog for a lady is a pug.”
Nell knew the only reason Maera was still allowed indoors was that Phyllis had not yet managed to break Bertie of bringing in whatever spaniel or pointer happened to be at his heels. Sooner or later she would succeed in banning dogs from the house.
She must have been storing up a list of her sister-in-law’s faults. It was not as if Nell ever did anything outrageous. Papa had not minde how she spent her time as long as she made him comfortable and did not scare the horses, so she quietly went her own way. She had been her own mistress for years.
In fact, Bertie had taught her to drive a pair and Papa had given her both the dog-cart and Vesta and Vulcan, her spirited, perfectly matched chestnuts. To match her fiery head, he’d said. Papa had not abominated red hair.
Tears rose to her eyes. She fiercely blinked them away.
“I shall lend you some of my French perfume,” said Phyllis graciously.
That was the last straw. She had to draw a line somewhere. “If Lord Clifford doesn’t care for lavender water,” she snapped, “he may go to the de…depths of the ocean!”
“Well, really!” Phyllis was thoroughly offended. “I’m only trying to help. At your age you must seize your chance.”
With difficulty, Nell mastered her temper, as Miss Lindisfarne had taught her years ago. “But, Phyllis,” she said in desperation, “if I behave as you suggest, Lord Clifford will not know what I am really like.”
Phyllis stared, astonished. “Good gracious, Eleanor, once he has come up to scratch and you are safely married, what has that to say to anything?”
So that was why poor Bertie had married her. He had mistaken a carefully constructed façade for reality, and discovered the reality too late.
Was Nell prepared to play the same trick on the unknown Lord Clifford? It was not as if she had any desire to make him live beneath the cat’s paw. She would make him comfortable, as she had Papa, and perhaps he’d allow her a little freedom in exchange. He would want children, at least an heir. No more dying of envy whenever she saw a woman with a babe in her arms. No more wondering whether she should marry a man she did not care for, solely for the sake of children.
As Phyllis nagged on, anything seemed preferable to staying at Brantwood.
* * * *
“I believe Lady Eleanor is in the music room, my lord.”
Benedict thanked the butler with a nod and made his way towards the music room. In five days at Brantwood he had yet to speak to Lady Eleanor alone. The Derringtons were all that was hospitable. There were other guests, many of them interested in purchasing the young earl’s fine carriage horses. Days were filled with shooting parties, outings on horseback with the ladies in carriages, a hunt with the South Berkshire. Every evening there were more guests to dinner, followed by music and cards and billiards.