“I am sure, Nathaniel,” Georgina said now, “there will be scores of ladies lovelier than I—and younger. I cannot imagine that I will attract many suitors.”
“Do you wish to attract
many,
then, Georgie?” he asked with a smile and a wink. “Would one wealthy, handsome one not be enough—and one who loved you and whom you loved?”
The anxiety went from her face and she laughed. “Yes, such a one would suffice very nicely indeed,” she said.
Georgina, he rather suspected, had had her heart broken at one time. Their youngest sister had married almost a year before. But her husband, a personable young gentleman of some fortune who had leased a property not far from Bowood a few months before Nathaniel’s return there, had apparently directed his attentions to Georgina before turning them on Eleanor. Georgie, a young lady of tender heart and strong loyalties, had often stayed at home instead of attending assemblies and other entertainments with her sisters. She had stayed in order to give her company to their ailing father, who had always seemed to grow worse when his girls were planning some outing. And so her suitor had chosen to pay court to the more easily accessible Eleanor.
Twenty was an advanced age for a young lady to be making her come-out. But not too advanced—certainly not for a young lady of Georgina’s delicate prettiness and sweet disposition. And she would have a more than adequate dowry. Nathaniel had no real fears for her.
Now, Lavinia ...
“You need not look at me like that, Nat,” she said as soon as his eyes turned in her direction and long before they could have assumed any expression that might be referred to as that. “I agreed to come. I even agreed quite readily as I wished to see London and to visit all the galleries and museums. I will even concede that there will be some pleasure in being outfitted by a modiste who will probably know what she is doing—Margaret has always spoken highly of her, anyway. And of course it will be interesting to attend balls and to witness all the follies of human nature as exhibited by its wealthiest and most privileged members. But nothing will prevail upon me, I warn you—
nothing
—to take my place in the marriage mart. Thank you kindly, but I am not for sale.”
Nathaniel sighed inwardly. There was nothing delicately pretty about Lavinia. She was a ravishing beauty, a surprising fact when she had sported carroty red hair as a child and had shot up to a gangly and quite shapeless height before he had left home, with freckles and large teeth that did not fit her face. But he had returned home to find that her hair had been interestingly transformed to a shining flame red, that the freckles had disappeared, that her teeth, strong and white and even, now belonged with her face and enhanced its loveliness, and that shape had more than caught up with her height.
She had over the years—and she was
four
and twenty—refused probably every eligible gentleman, and a few ineligible ones, within a fifteen-mile radius of home, not to mention several who had happened into the neighborhood for one reason or another and would have liked nothing better than to happen out of it again with a red-haired bride.
She had no intention of marrying
anyone ever,
Lavinia always declared. Nathaniel was beginning to believe her. It was a gloomy thought.
“You need not look so glum,” she said now. “You could be rid of me in a flash, Nat, if you would just not be so stuffy and release my fortune to me. I am four and twenty, for God’s sake.”
“Lavinia,” Georgina said reproachfully. Georgie was always the perfect lady. She never took the Lord’s name in vain.
“And am not entitled to manage my own fortune until I marry or turn thirty years of age,” Lavinia continued. “If Papa were still alive, he should be shot for including such a Gothic clause in his will.”
Nathaniel tended to agree. But he could not change the will. And though he could, he supposed, arrange for his cousin to set up her own home somewhere under his supervision—something she longed to do, though he believed the supervision part did not appear large in her imagination—he would prefer to see her married to someone who could handle her and perhaps bring her some happiness. She was not a happy young woman.
Georgina gasped before he could reply—though in truth there was nothing to say that he had not said ad nauseam over the past two years—and drew their attention to the window again.
“Oh look!” she said. “Oh, Nathaniel!” Her hands were clasped to her bosom and she was gazing out at the streets and buildings of Mayfair as if they really were faced with gold.
“I must confess London is improving with every furlong,” Lavinia admitted.
Nathaniel drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. He had found himself unexpectedly content with country life, but it felt good to be back in town. And though his sister and his cousin believed that he had come for the sole purpose of giving them a Season and finding them husbands, they were only partly correct.
His three closest friends were also coming to London and had written to beg him to come too. They had been cavalry officers together and had developed a deep friendship based on shared experiences, shared dangers, a shared need to make light of all the dangers and discomforts and to live their lives to the full—both on the battlefield and off it. One fellow officer had dubbed them the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for their tendency to be always in the spot where the fighting was thickest and most intense. They had sold out together after Waterloo and had celebrated their survival together for several months after that.
Kenneth Woodfall, Earl of Haverford, and Rex Adams, Viscount Rawleigh, were now married. Each had one son. Both spent most of their time on their country estates, Ken in Cornwall, Rex in Kent. Eden Wendell, Baron Pelham, was single and unsettled, the only one of them still to feel the restlessness and the need to grasp at every pleasure life had to offer that had consumed them all at first. Nathaniel had not seen any of them for almost two years, but they stayed in close communication with one another. The other three were to spend the spring in London. It did not take Nathaniel long to decide that he would join them there, especially since he had already been toying with Margaret’s suggestion.
And there was yet another reason for his coming to town. He felt a strong aversion to the idea of marrying even though there were several eligible young ladies in the neighborhood of his estate and he had plenty of female relatives eager to play matchmaker. Indeed it was Margaret’s declared intention not only to find husbands for Georgie and Lavinia in London, but also to find a wife for her brother.
But he had been beset by women for the past two years. He was longing for the time when his home would be his own, when he might come and go as he pleased, be as tidy or as untidy about the house as he pleased, put his booted feet up on the desk in his library if he pleased, or even on the best sofa in the drawing room, for that matter. He looked forward to the time when he might walk into any of the dayrooms in the house without looking about him in fear of seeing yet another new piece of embroidery or crocheting adorning tabletops or backs of sofas or arms of chairs. He looked forward to the time when he might bring one or two of his favorite dogs into the house if he pleased.
He had no intention of replacing sisters and a cousin with a wife, who would of necessity be with him for the rest of his life, managing his home for his supposed comfort. He intended to remain a bachelor—at least for a good number of years to come. Time enough to marry when he was in his forties, if at that time he found himself unable to quell the guilt of not having even tried to get an heir for Bowood.
But although his mind was quite set against a wife, he felt an almost overpowering need for a woman. Sometimes it amazed and even alarmed him to realize that he had not had one for almost two years. Yet all through his years with the army he had been as lusty as any man and a good deal lustier than most—he and Rex and Ken and Ede had never lacked for willing partners. And those months after Waterloo had been one continuous orgy—or so it seemed in memory. He supposed he must have taken a few nights off for sleep. Though perhaps not.
It was next to impossible in the country to satisfy his very natural male appetites without at the same time saddling himself with a wife. But London was a different matter. Georgie and Lavinia were without a doubt his primary responsibility. But they would not take all his time. There would be all sorts of activities that were for ladies only, and Margaret was sure to be a diligent chaperon. Besides, his nights would be his own except on those occasions when there was a ball—though they would be frequent enough, he realized.
He intended to slake his appetites quite thoroughly while he was in town. Eden would be sure to have a suggestion or two on the topic.
Yes, it definitely felt good to be back. His carriage drew to a halt before a tall, fine-looking house on Upper Brook Street. It was the house Nathaniel had leased for the Season. It was, he knew, not far from Park Lane or from Hyde Park itself. It was in one of the best neighborhoods of Mayfair.
He vaulted out of the carriage even before his coachman had put down the steps, and looked up at the house. He had always taken bachelor lodgings when he had stayed in London. But with a sister and a cousin to bring out, of course, a house was necessary. It felt good to stretch his legs and to breathe in fresh air. He turned to hand down the ladies.
Early the following morning a lady sat alone at the escritoire in the sitting room of her home on Sloan Terrace, brushing the feather of her quill pen across her chin as she studied the figures set out neatly on the paper spread before her. Her slippered foot smoothed lightly over the back of her dog, a collie who was snoozing contentedly beneath the desk.
There was enough money without dipping into her woefully meager savings. The bills for coal and candles had been paid a week ago—they were always a considerable expense. She did not have to worry about the salaries of her three servants—they were taken care of by a government grant. And of course the house was hers—given to her by the same government. The quarterly pension money that had been paid her last week—the coal and candle bills had been paid out of it—would just stretch to pay off this new debt.
She would not, of course, be able to buy the new evening gown she had been promising herself or the new half boots. Or that bonnet she had seen in a shop window on Oxford Street when out with her friend Gertrude two days ago—the day before she had been presented with this new debt.
Debt
—what a sad euphemism! For a moment there was a sick lurching in her stomach and panic clawed at her. She drew a slow breath and forced her mind to deal with practicalities.
The bonnet was easily expendable. It would have been a mere extravagance anyway. But the gown ...
Sophia Armitage sighed aloud. It was two years since she had had a new evening gown. And that, even though it had been chosen for her presentation at Carlton House to no less a personage than the Regent, the Prince of Wales, was of the dullest dark blue silk and the most conservative of designs. Although she had been out of mourning, she had felt the occasion called for extreme restraint. She had been wearing that gown ever since.
She had so hoped this year to have a new one. Although she was invited almost everywhere, she did not usually accept invitations to the more glittering
ton
events. This year, though, she felt obliged to put in an appearance at some of them at least. This year Viscount Houghton, her brother-in-law, her late husband’s brother, was in town with his family. Sarah, at the age of eighteen, was to make her come-out. Edwin and Beatrice, Sophia knew, hoped desperately that they would find a suitable husband for the girl during the next few months. They were not wealthy and could ill afford a second Season for her next year.
But they were kindness itself to Sophia. Although her father had been a coal merchant, albeit a wealthy one, and Walter’s father had resisted her marriage to his son, Edwin and Beatrice had treated her with unfailing generosity ever since Walter’s death. They would have given her a home and an allowance. They wanted her now to attend the grander events of the Season with them.
Of course, it could do them nothing but good to be seen in public with her, though she did not believe they were motivated by that fact alone. The truth was that Walter, Major Walter Armitage, who had fought as a cavalry officer throughout the war years in Portugal and Spain, always doing his duty, never distinguishing himself, had died at Waterloo in the performance of an act of extraordinary bravery. He had saved the lives of several superior officers, the Duke of Wellington’s included, and then he had gone dashing off on foot into the thick of dense fighting in order to rescue a lowly lieutenant who had been unhorsed. Neither of them had survived. Walter had been found with his arms still clasped protectively around the younger man. He had been in the act of carrying him to safety.
Walter had been mentioned in dispatches. He had been mentioned personally by the Duke of Wellington. His deed of valor, culminating in his own death while trying to save an inferior, had caught the imagination of that most soft-hearted of gentlemen, the Prince of Wales, and so, a year after his death, Major Armitage had been honored at Carlton House and decorated posthumously. His widow, who had shown her devotion by following the drum throughout the Peninsular campaigns and Waterloo, must not suffer from the death of so brave a man. She had been gifted with a modest home in a decent neighborhood of London and the services of three servants. She had been granted a pension which, though modest, enabled her to achieve an independence of either her brother-in-law or her own brother, who had recently taken over the business on their father’s death.
Walter himself had left her almost nothing. The sizable dowry that had persuaded him to marry her—though she believed he had had an affection for her too—had been spent during the course of their marriage.