The Savage Miss Saxon (34 page)

Lord Fox was clearly enraptured with the notion that he knew something Lord Mayfield did not. “Wiley has to marry, of course,” he whispered confidentially, his watery blue eyes dancing. “His great-aunt, Miss Earlene Hambleton, has decreed it, else she will leave her fortune to some worthy society for rehabilitating whores. Or was that schoolboys?” He gave a dismissing wave of his thin, long-fingered hands. “Either way, Johnny, Wiley will be all rolled up if he doesn’t find a young lady of good family to bracket his ramshackle self to within the year.”

And that is when the sun came out. Oh, it had risen above the horizon hours earlier, but this was the first Jonathan Wetherell, fourteenth earl of Mayfield, had noticed its golden glory. “Wiley
must
wed?” he asked, his heart pounding so that Pitney, had his own heart beat half so fast, would have sat straight down on the curbing, sure his time on this mortal coil had run out and he was about to be called to his fathers.

“Then you don’t know after all,” Lord Fox proclaimed, happy to be the bearer of such delicious news. “I would have thought the only person in all of Mayfair still without that knowledge would be Knox—whom everyone knows does not know anything of any importance. Poor Knox. The man has so little conversation, don’t you agree, even if he talks
incessantly
, prosing on and on and on about the minutiae of life until, I swear, a man could—Johnny, why are you looking at me so strangely? Oh, dear, that’s right. You’ve told me you’re in love. Such a coup. I shall be like Wiley, and dine out on this story for a sennight—if only you will tell me the details, Johnny, the details. But hurry, do, for I have an appointment with a new doctor here in Bond Street at two, and would not like to be above ten minutes late. He’s just down from Edinburgh, and said to be ever so clever. I think I will show him my rash. Yes, I do think the rash would be an excellent place to begin.”

Lord Mayfield was beginning to feel a crushing headache squeezing at his temples. Lord Fox seemed to be in the process of doing a creditably stultifying imitation of Knox Bromley, the man Lord Fox had mentioned in passing, the man who could occupy himself and bore his audience for a quarter hour just in saying hello.

“Would you and Knox and Wiley care to join me in the country next week for a small house party, Pitney?” he asked quickly as Lord Fox stopped to take a breath. “I will tell you then about my descent into love’s clutches, and we will have a bruising time, I promise. Damn it all, you may even bring your Edinburgh quack if you so desire. I am feeling particularly congenial, Pitney, but do hurry and answer, before my better self reminds me how very little I like any of you.”

Lord Fox was momentarily speechless, clutching at his chest in amazement—and to assure himself his heart still beat in its dreadfully calm way, just as if he wasn’t daily at death’s door. “You—Wiley—
Knox?
Why, Johnny, I never thought... I never imagined... but of
course
, we shall all be delighted! Next week, you say? At Mayfield? I have never been, you know. You’ve never invited me.
Must
I bring Knox and Wiley?”

Lord Mayfield smiled blightingly. “They are your ticket of entrance, dear Pitney,” he said bracingly. “Can you achieve this small feat, as I don’t in the normal course of events see either of them? It might help if you told Wiley that I shall have an array of eligible young misses there for his delectation. As for Knox, just tell him I wish to hear his opinion on Prinny’s Pavilion in Bath. That should give him conversation enough to keep his jaw well oiled for the fortnight I plan.”

Lord Fox was all a-quiver, his unfortunately long nose twitching as he apparently took up the scent of intrigue. “You’ve got something a-foot, don’t you, Johnny? Something to do with this tumble into love you’ve taken? Oh, yes. I sense a fine tale here somewhere, some deep machinations. Dare I ask?”

“No,” Lord Mayfield said cheerfully. “You may not. Only know that you shall be well entertained. Now, Pitney, if you don’t mind, I do believe I must be off.” He looked Lord Fox’s ill-fitting ensemble up and down, ending, “I suddenly feel like a long visit with my tailor. You don’t as a rule deal with Weston, do you?”

“Weston? At his outrageous prices? Indeed, no. I have discovered a tailor just off Piccadilly, who makes up my clothes from designs I draw him myself.”

“How you comfort me, Pitney.” He gave the man a slight bow. “You will, naturally, seek your own transportation to Mayfield. Arrive on Monday morning, if you please, prepared for a fortnight’s stay. Toodle-oo, Pitney, old friend, and thank you. You have truly made my day.”

Lord Fox waggled his fingers at Lord Mayfield’s departing back, not knowing if he should be delighted at his lordship’s invitation or frightened by the intense, assessing look the man had given him before he took off down the flagway, a definite lilt in his step.

But then, as the hour of two was fast approaching, and his rash was now plaguing him in a place where polite gentlemen did not, in public, scratch, he pushed any misgivings from his mind and went off to visit his new doctor, who would most certainly tell him if country air would do his pesky nasal drip any good.

Miss Virginia Noddenly sat on the window seat in her small bedchamber, the one overlooking the mews, and wondered how fate could be so cruel.

Aged eight and ten, with fiery red hair and skin so fair it had been compared to finest marble, Miss Noddenly was still charmingly unaware of her beauty, which also included wide, green eyes as calm and serene as the sea at dawn, a small, pert nose, a delightful heart-shaped face, and a petite, trim figure many debutantes would willingly sacrifice their doting mamas to possess.

For all the good any of this beauty and perfection of form would do her. Poor Miss Virginia Noddenly. Poor,
poor
Miss Noddenly.

Yet, perhaps this maidenly lack of insight into her physical charms was a good thing, for if she were to dwell on the physical, if she were to consider the delights that bodily perfection could gain her, the children she might bear, the life she might have at her loved one’s side, she might just break down and weep.

For Miss Virginia Noddenly was destined to be an old maid.

The ninth Miss Noddenly. That’s what she had heard herself called by some vicious cats in one of the withdrawing rooms the single night her papa had allowed her to mingle with society.

The ninth, the last, the most unfortunately positioned Miss Noddenly, daughter of Sir Roderick Noddenly, the most stubborn, pigheaded, although adorable man this side of Perdition.

“My girls will marry in the order of their birth,” Sir Roderick had decreed many years ago, and almost daily since then.

“First Faith, then Hope, then Charity—good names all, but then I had never bargained on more than three—then Lucille, then Marianne, then Lettice Ann, then Myrtle—named after my sainted grandmother, who always said if I had enough girls I’d finally come through and honor her—then Georgette—after my grandfather, as fair’s fair—and, lastly, my sweet Virginia. I’ve said it, and that is how it shall be. I shall brook no opposition!”

Faith had wed first, as ordered, and now had five little ones, all of them thankfully living in Lancashire, far away from the family home in Sussex.

Hope was wife to the local doctor, Charity had snagged herself an earl, and Lucille was the proud wife of a dean at Cambridge.

Marianne had wed a sea captain and now lived in far off Boston, rarely writing her dear papa, who had made her wait until Lucille and her “twit of a schoolteacher” had put the cart before the horse and Lucille was at last marched down the aisle, one bun already in the oven.

All these marriages had left Sir Roderick woefully short of funds for Lettice Ann’s dowry, so that her entrance into society had been delayed for more than three years, leaving the incongruously named Lettice Ann and her always slight but now rapidly cooling beauty free to pursue the Noddenly gardener, who did not return her affections.

It wasn’t as if this delayed entrance to the “marriage mart” had bothered Myrtle, who was in no hurry to be put on the block, having long ago, and as repeatedly as her father, put forth the declaration that she’d much rather remain unfettered, the better to devote her time and affection to her horseflesh (which, sadly, she much resembled).

This left Georgette, a most charming but die-away miss of twenty, a young lady never more content as when she was ailing, having learned in her youth that one sure way of gaining herself attention amidst this gaggle of females was to cough, or sneeze, or groan wearily, or even sigh as if this long, sad breath might be her last.

Georgette would very much like to be married—and secretly envied her sister Hope’s success at snagging herself a doctor, although she would, of course, marry a decidedly
superior
physician, one who didn’t rudely tell her to get herself up and out in the fresh air and stop behaving like some die-away goose when she was as sound and strong as any of Myrtle’s mares.

Three unmarried sisters. Three spinster sisters who must somehow be led or pushed or threatened to the altar before the last sister, Virginia, would be allowed to wed.

Virginia sighed, not as deeply as Georgette, but with much more credulity, and wondered if the year’s worth of pin money she had saved would be enough to bribe the Noddenly gardener into eloping with Lettice Ann.

Not that such a bold action would solve all Virginia’s problems, for next to be popped off would then be Myrtle. Marrying off
that
Noddenly sister would be akin to waving her hand and parting the English Channel so that all of England could stroll barefoot to Calais.

Perhaps Virginia should consider introducing her sister to a jockey? Myrtle might tower over the man, but at least they’d have something in common.

Leaving Georgette-Vinaigrette, as Virginia privately called her next oldest sibling, who was often to be seen waving a bottle containing that vile-smelling restorative as a precaution against her frequent fits of lightheadedness.

Who would ever wed that tiresome whiner? Would it pay Virginia to place an advertisement in the London papers requesting an unexceptional gentleman who longed to be a supporting prop to an invalid in exchange for a life of unremitting complaint?

Or would it be easier to apply for such a man at Bethlehem Hospital, for only a certifiable lunatic would ever wish for such a fate.

Fate. Yes, that was what Virginia was thinking about this fine afternoon.

Fate, that had chosen for her to be the ninth, the last, Miss Noddenly.

Fate, that had brought her to London with her older sisters now that her mother was deceased and Sir Roderick could see no reason to leave anyone behind in Sussex when it would be considerably more economically prudent to keep all his servants under one roof.

Fate, that had allowed her that single night in Society when Georgette had complained of an earache and decided to remain home, a roasted onion stuck in the offending ear.

Fate, that had put one marvelously handsome Jonathan Wetherell, fourteenth Earl of Mayfield in her path, love in her path, only to snatch it away again with the knowledge that their love could never be.

Ah, but how absolutely wonderful those first few weeks had been.

The stolen moments in a quiet corner at Hatchard’s Book Depository.

The sweet whispers in the dark when he had come to stand beneath this very window.

The single kiss they had shared in Hyde Park, when Myrtle had been too busy admiring the Prince Regent’s carriage horses to notice that her younger sister had sneaked off into the trees.

The vows of undying love told to her by Jonathan Wetherell, the most perfect, most wonderful, most
confused
gentlemen in the history of the world.

Jonathan hadn’t wished to fall in love, and most certainly not with a green-as-grass girl from Sussex. Virginia knew this because he had told her, quite honestly, still personally amazed at the depth of his emotions.

He was a man in his early thirties, firmly committed to bachelorhood until it was absolutely necessary to set up his nursery, and a man jaded by Society and a dozen Seasons of insipid debutantes.

Why he had seen Virginia, seen her “glorious hair, her heartbreaking smile” and immediately succumbed to this debilitating emotion he would, he swore, never know.

He only knew that he loved Virginia Noddenly, loved her madly, passionately, and would trod bootless across broken glass in order to gain her hand in marriage.

What he hadn’t been prepared to do was to take that trek over the collective bodies of Lettice Ann, Myrtle, and Georgette-Vinaigrette Noddenly.

He hadn’t been prepared for that eventuality at all, and so he had stated when he had approached Sir Roderick to petition him for leave to press his suit.

“My girls will marry in the order of their birth,” Sir Roderick had told him most firmly. “First Faith, then Hope, then Charity—good names all, but then I had never bargained on more than three—then Lucille, then Marianne, then Lettice Ann, then—”

Virginia had smiled at Jonathan, sadly, knowingly, and told him there was no necessity for him to repeat her father’s speech word-for-word.