Carola Dunn (21 page)

“I shall see if Mr. Pearson is at home, sir,” he said in a measured tone and went into the sitting room, closing the door behind him.

Lucy found the man intimidating, Nathan knew. She much preferred old Hayes, with his sagging wrinkles and his friendly manner that put her at ease. How she would enjoy living at Langdale among servants who would love her for their master’s sake as well as for her gentle nature. He must have a new flower garden made for her in a sheltered spot; Jessica would know the best place.

His daydream shattered as the door of the sitting-room opened and a short, lean, elderly man—the man Nathan had seen at the Guildhall—came out into the hall.

“Good day, Sir Nathan.” His handshake was warm and firm, and the shrewd look in his eye seemed not unfriendly—but of course that would change when he learned the worst. “Come into my study,” he went on, leading the way across the hall, “though office’d be a better name for it. I like to keep my finger in the pie, don’t you know, though officially I’m retired from the business.”

As Jessica had said, he appeared to be a civil, respectable fellow. Any attempt to ape the refinement of a gentleman, or to toad-eat, would have set Nathan’s back up at once, but he found nothing to cavil at. Mr. Pearson’s clothes were well-made and of good quality, but by no means in the first stare of fashion. He looked and acted, in fact, like a sober, honest, and successful citizen.

“Sit down, sit down,” he said, waving Nathan to a deep leather armchair. He himself took his seat behind a wide desk piled with several neat stacks of papers, and Nathan decided on the straight chair in front of the desk. Somehow confession would be more difficult from the depths of an easy chair.

The butler brought in a tray with a bottle and two glasses. Nathan accepted a glass of Malaga but set the sweet wine untouched on the desk.

“Well, my boy?” said Mr. Pearson as the butler departed.

There was something excessively comforting about being called “my boy.” Nathan was suddenly aware of how much he had missed his father, and he desperately wanted Mr. Pearson’s liking and approval. He was about to forfeit both.

He put off the evil moment. “I want to thank you, sir, for coming to the rescue at the magistrate’s court this morning.”

“Why, it might just as well have been my Lucy yon fine gentleman was pawing, and I don’t suppose you’d have held your punches if it was. She’s told me often enough how you’ve kept the baron away. Miss Franklin hasn’t taken any harm from his attentions, I hope?”

“No, Jessica can take care of herself. She had already hit him on the nose before I arrived.”

“So Lucy told me. I’d’ve spoken to Jack Perrin the sooner if I hadn’t been enjoying the way your sister laid into that rogue. Toad, she called him to his face.” He chortled. “A mettlesome young lady, Miss Franklin.”

Too mettlesome for him, Nathan acknowledged to himself. He had allowed her bold spirit to lead him into this bumblebath. “Jess is the best sister a fellow could ask for,” he said loyally, “but it’s a different sort of female I’m looking for. I want to marry your daughter, sir.”

“Well, now.” Mr. Pearson’s eyes were bright and considering. “I’ll not deny I’ve been expecting as much.”

“There is something I must tell you before I ask your permission to address her,” Nathan rushed on. “I daresay Miss Pearson has told you about Langdale?”

“To be sure. Not that it’s ever crossed her mind, bless her heart, to wonder about your circumstances, but you’re known in Bath as a wealthy landowner.”

Nathan stared at his hands. “That’s just it, sir, I’m not. The Franklins have held Langdale for centuries but we have never owned it. The lease is up at Michaelmas and I can’t afford to renew it, at least not without selling all the sheep, and then there would be nothing to farm.” He looked up at his beloved’s father, whose face was inscrutable. “I’ll leave at once, sir, if you wish, but though I realize you won’t find it easy to believe, I really do love Lucy.”

“Oh, I believe it, my boy. If you didn’t, I doubt you’d have troubled yourself to confess as yet, for once Lucy had accepted you I’d have had the devil of a time pulling her out of it. She’d take you if you was a pauper.”

“Do you think so, sir?” His heart warmed. “It’s not quite that bad, but I shan’t have enough to support a family in comfort.”

“I’m right glad you’ve got the courage to tell me.”

Jumping to his feet, Nathan flared up. “I give no one leave to doubt my courage!’’

“Nay, lad, I’m not calling you a coward, but there’s different kinds of bravery. There’s facing the enemy’s guns—I don’t doubt you’ve won your spurs. And there’s facing your own faults and weaknesses, which is more difficult. And then there’s admitting to someone whose good opinion you need that you’ve been trying to deceive them...well, that may be the hardest of all.”

“Trying to... but you said... Jess said...”

“...That I’d welcome you for a son-in-law? That was my own little bit o’ prevarication, like. If you’d come asking me for my girl and hadn’t confessed to being a fortune hunter, I’d’ve sent you to the rightabout and told you Miss Franklin must’ve misunderstood.”

“Then you knew all along!” Nathan was bewildered.

“I may know naught o’ sheep, my boy, but I can tell you fools don’t prosper in the City. The moment you started making eyes at Lucy I sent a man up north to find out what he could about Sir Nathan Franklin, Baronet, and I can tell you I wasn’t pleased with what he told me.”

“Who can blame you,” said Nathan gloomily.

“Then your sister brought back the bracelet I gave her—nice and polite as you please, but firm with it. Worth a pretty penny, it was, and that gave me pause. I can tell you, if I was thirty years younger I’d be proposing to Mistress Jessica myself,” he admitted with a cheerful wink. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole fortune-hunting business was her notion, but I like you the better for not blaming the deception on her.”

“Does Miss Pearson know?”

“Not from me, she don’t. I’ll leave you to tell her.”

“I will, sir, I promise.” He hesitated, incredulous of the implications. “You mean you don’t object to my asking for her hand?’’

“I don’t mind telling you, my boy, I’ll be right put out if you don’t after all the trouble I’ve been to.”

“Trouble?”

“That man Scunthwaite’s a hard man to deal with, no mistake, and not knowing aught of sheep didn’t make it any easier, though it’s my belief he thinks there’s coal at Langdale.”

“You have already bought the lease!”

“Nay, lad, anyone in the City can tell you Ben Pearson likes to own what he owns. I’ve bought up Langdale, every last stone and blade of grass of the place, and the coal underneath if any there be. You’ll get the lease as a marriage settlement, and the deed’s going to be a christening present for my first grandson.”

“I don’t know what to say, sir.” Nathan leant across the desk and heartily shook his future father-in-law’s hand. “Except that I’ll make her happy, I swear I will.”

“Well, now, you can’t say fairer than that.” Mr. Pearson regarded him with beaming indulgence. “You’d best be off and tell her so. She’s in the room across the hall.”

Nathan lost no time in obeying. When he opened the door of the sitting room, she was standing with bowed head by a table in the window. Her dainty figure, in white with blue ribbons, was taut with a tension that surely had nothing to do with the
Ladies’ Magazine
lying open before her.

“Lucy?” he said.

She turned and ran into his arms. Neither of them heard Mrs. Woodcock tut-tutting.

“Kissing before they are even properly betrothed!” scolded that scandalized lady as Mr. Pearson, grinning, quietly removed her from the room.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

It was a perfect afternoon for a drive in the country. A cooling breeze had broken the morning’s promise of heat. Breathing the mingled scent of honeysuckle and dog rose, Jessica made a determined effort to put her unhappiness behind her.

“Are we going to Prior Park?” she asked, as Matthew took the south-west road out of Bath. “I have heard that it is well worth a visit.”

“Have you not yet visited it? I shall have to remedy that one of these days, but no, not today, though we shall pass close by. I want... that is, I hope to show you Stone Gables.”

“Your uncle’s house?” She was astonished.

“Yes. You don’t think it too far? It’s fifteen miles or so, but I have your aunt’s permission.”

“I’d love to see it.” Was she wrong about him after all? Had she too quickly believed Tad’s report of his disinheritance? Surely he would not take her to see Lord Stone if he had quarrelled with him irrevocably.

While she was trying to think of a delicate way to probe for answers, particularly difficult with the groom hearing every word, Matthew quickly changed the subject. The road ran uphill alongside a pair of metal tracks, and he explained how Ralph Allen had reopened the ancient quarries at Combe Down and built the railway to carry Bath stone down to the growing town.

“John Wood the Elder was designing and building Queen Square and the Parades and the Circus at the time, eighty years ago. Allen made a fortune from the stone and had Wood design Prior Park for him. You’ll see it in a minute, when we pass these trees.”

Jessica gasped at the sight. Spread across the top of the hill, with a view down to Bath, Prior Park was a vast mansion in the grandest Palladian style. On each side of a central block with huge Corinthian columns, a curving arcade of arches led to symmetrical wings.

“An architect’s dream, isn’t it?” said Matthew cheerfully, amused at her awe. “All you need is a patron with money and vision, and a perfect site, and a nearby quarry full of beautiful stone. I suppose you want to draw it?”

“Oh yes, one day, if I can find paper large enough.”

“I’ll find you some,” he promised, laughing. “Mr. Allen didn’t disdain the simpler side of life, either. He built some excellent cottages for his quarry workers in the village. We’ll drive past those, too.”

They continued to discuss architecture for the next several miles, but Matthew seemed to grow more and more uneasy. At last he lapsed into silence, concentrating on driving through the narrow, twisting lanes. The hedgerows were abloom with ragged robin, Queen Anne’s lace, purple foxgloves and yellow toadflax, but Jessica found it impossible to appreciate their beauty.

The longer the silence between them went on, the more difficult it became to speak. She felt an almost tangible tension, full of indecipherable meaning. Possibilities flitted through her head.

She was right about the break with his uncle, she was sure of it. Matthew meant to show her Stone Gables the way he had shown her Prior Park, driving past for a torturing glimpse of what he had lost. Or perhaps he had found out that Lord Stone was away from home. He would take her to call on Miss Stone—he was very fond of his aunt—and then, having waved the carrot before her, he would propose.

Was he going to confess to his deception? If he didn’t, did it mean there was nothing to confess? In that case, how was she going to reveal her own lack of fortune? How could she ask him for the Langdale lease as a bride-gift? Why, oh why, had she ever come up with the baconbrained notion of going to Bath to seek a rich husband?

She must have been mad, she thought miserably.

The bays slowed, pulling the curricle up a hill. On one side of the lane was a wall, with a wood beyond it. They came to a white-painted gate leading to a grassy ride between the trees, and Matthew reined in his pair.

Hanson jumped down and opened the gate.

“This is where you start walking,” Matthew told him as he drove through.

“Aye, sir,” said the groom philosophically. ‘“Tain’t no more nor a mile.” He saluted, closed the gate, and set off along a path through the wood.

“You don’t mind, do you?” Matthew asked Jessica. “We’re on my uncle’s land now. I doubt if even Miss Tibbett would object.”

“I cannot speak for Aunt Tibby, but I don’t mind,” she said with a certain caution.

They continued up the ride in the cool shade of oaks and sycamores. The woods were well cared for, clear of underbrush, with stacks of fresh-cut timber now and then showing that old trees were regularly felled. Somewhere a jay screeched a warning and a cock pheasant dashed across in front of the carriage. On the grass the horses’ hooves and the wheels were silent; the twittering of birds filled the air, punctuated by a knocking woodpecker.

Jessica looked at Matthew. His face was set, unreadable.

They emerged from the woods into sunshine, reached the top of the rise, and stopped. Before them parkland dotted with oaks spread down to a stream, then rose again. Half way up the opposite slope sprawled Stone Gables.

“That’s what happens when half a dozen builders over the course of three centuries get their hands on a house,” said Matthew. “The original manor is Tudor, but every Viscount Stone since has added his own pile of stones in the current style.”

“I like it,” she assured him. “It may not be as grand as Prior Park but it looks far more comfortable. At least every architect seems to have added a few more gables to unify the design.”

His smile was strained and he turned quickly back to the view. “I like it, too. I thought it would be mine one day. Miss Franklin, I cannot bear to deceive you any longer. I was my uncle’s heir but he disinherited me before ever I met you. I am no better than a common fortune hunter.”

“I know,” said Jessica simply.

“You know!” He stared at her, hope dawning. “And you still... Then you...”

“Wait.” Taken by surprise, she still hadn’t found the right words. Perhaps there were no right words. “I have no expectations, either. We never owned Langdale and we can’t afford to renew the lease. When the stock is sold I’ll have a little money, maybe enough to rent a cottage in the country, but that is all. Barely enough to live on.” Desolate, she dashed away the tears that blurred her vision.

Matthew dropped the reins and took her in his arms. “Don’t cry, Jess.” His voice was urgent. “Marry me anyway. I have a small income from my father, we’ll get by. Jessica, my darling, I love you. Nothing else matters.” Knocking her hat askew, he kissed her brimming eyes.