Not Quite a Lady (The Dressmakers 4)

“If I had rules, I should not bother you with it,” he said. “But furnishings are not my area of expertise. I’d better leave it to your judgment.” He paused very briefly, then added, “If any of it will fetch money, I should like to know.”

“Ah,” she said, unsurprised. Restoring an estate of this size was a costly business. She’d guessed his finances were not limitless, and she was sure he’d hate asking his father for money.

What surprised her was his embarrassment. He was always so completely self-assured. Yet it was unmistakable, the darkening of the bronzed skin at the top of his cheekbones.

She ought not to let that sign of vulnerability affect her; she ought not to let him touch her heart so easily, but it was too late to protect herself. He was kind to children and dogs and to her and he fretted about his father, as any son might do. He was not always cocksure, not always coolly rational. He was human, a man she could talk to easily.

A human who happened to be a rake. But what could she do? She was human, too.

“My father expects me to make Beechwood produce income within a year,” he said. “I am making progress on the agricultural side but the repairs to the house…” He trailed off, shrugging.

Incredulous, she stared at him. “A year?”

“He wants me to be able to support myself,” he said.

“That is not at all unusual,” she said. “Younger sons can be a severe financial drain. But only a year—”

“The alternative is marriage,” he said. “To live off a wife’s dowry.”

“And you are averse to marriage,” she said.

“Not averse, precisely,” he said.

“Not ready, then.”

He did not answer right away. He moved to the window where she’d sat the other day, trying to calm down. She remembered how he’d sat beside her, waiting, watching…concerned.

He gazed at the sunlit landscape beyond. Then he turned around and looked at her. “I fully understand the purpose of marriage,” he said. “It is one of society’s more reasonable constructs. It is grounded in natural law, and it is of both economic and social value. It theoretically provides protection to the female who bears and cares for progeny. It offers a means of securing property and ensuring its passing to the male’s descendants. Even in nature, among animals, males employ methods—some quite ruthless—to ensure the continuation of their seed.”

“Too, since monogamy is not required among human males,” she said, “being married need not be so very different from being single.”

“Exactly,” he said. “In other words, matrimony, in itself, is not to me an intolerable idea.”

“Yet you chose to accept an impossible challenge instead,” she said.

“It isn’t impossible,” he said.

“Perhaps not impossible, but the very next thing,” she said. “You’ll have the devil’s own time.”

“I didn’t expect it to be easy,” he said. “If it were easy, my father wouldn’t have proposed it.”

It would be far more difficult than finding a wealthy bride, she thought. He’d have no trouble at all sweeping any girl off her feet, and his connections would allay parental concerns. Did not her own father consider Mr. Carsington matrimonial material? Her cousins, when they came, would swoon if he paid them the slightest attention.

Even she, who understood men far better than any of them ever would, couldn’t help wishing her past were only a bad dream, and she might try to win his heart, truly.

If, if, if.

She turned her mind to calculating. “You have excellent timber, and the home farm is already functioning,” she said briskly. “The dairy will bring in a good sum. I should not advise you to sell the silver or auction off the paintings, except as a last resort. However, there is no reason to keep all the furniture. Some of the heavy pieces especially will sell for a high price to the ironmongers and such who are building those absurd medieval castles and devising their own coats of arms.” She looked about her. “You might manage it, though I suspect it will be a very near thing.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said.

“I doubt it,” she said.

“You’re thinking it would be easier to wed an heiress,” he said. “But that’s the trouble, don’t you see? Marriage would be the easy way out. Whether or not my father has high expectations of me, I should be a disappointment to him and to myself if I fail in this.”

What argument could she give him, she who understood, acutely, painfully, the wish to live up to what was expected, to not disappoint?

“I quite understand,” she said. “I shall proceed with this lot of possessions according to economic rather than aesthetic or sentimental principles.”

His posture relaxed. “Except for Grandmother,” he said, coming away from the window. “Nothing remotely practical for her. Beautiful. Unique.”

“Yes, Mr. Carsington, I understand,” she said.

She understood too much. Her heart would be so much safer now if she hadn’t let herself get so close. The more she knew, the more she was drawn to him and the more she wanted to confide in him, as he confided in her.

Oh, she must be desperate indeed to come to this. Desperate, confused, and lonely.

The house party…the boy…this man.

She wished she could escape her life, if only for a short time, to clear her head and sort everything out and put things in their proper places.

She couldn’t. She’d have to make do with sorting furniture. She made herself give an impatient wave of dismissal. “Leave it to me,” she said. “Go on about your business.”

Charlotte could have tackled the furniture first, but the trunk, with its souvenirs of a bygone era, called to her. His grandmother and Lady Margaret must have been contemporaries. Furthermore, Mr. Carsington’s grandmother still showed a partiality for the fashions and manners of her youth. She often entertained guests in her boudoir, wearing her dressing gown, as ladies did in the time of King George II.

And so, after Mr. Carsington left, Charlotte once more threw a cushion on the floor. Once more she emptied the trunk, sorting its contents as she went along. This time, though, when she reached the bottom, her finger snagged on something. Peering down, she saw a loop made of ribbon. Gently, she tugged at the loop.

The bottom of the trunk came up. The false bottom.

Underneath lay packets of letters tied in faded ribbon. A little book. And a miniature of a handsome man in uniform.

She opened the book.

She began to read.

She read on, turning page after page. Then she started to cry.

Darius was at his desk, staring glumly at a ledger, when a sound made him look up. The boy Pip stood in the doorway, looking worried. The bulldog stood beside him, looking up worriedly at the boy. Or maybe that part was Darius’s imagination.

“What’s wrong?” Darius said. “Has someone fallen off a ladder again and blamed you?”

“No, sir. I only came in the house because Daisy chased a cat inside, and I was afraid someone would trip over her or the cat or they’d knock something over. May I come in, sir?”

Darius impatiently waved him in. Them in. Because the dog seemed to believe she was leashed to Pip’s ankles.

The boy closed the door behind him and crept toward the desk. “Sir,” he said softly. “It’s the lady. The younger lady.”

Darius’s heart raced. “Has she fallen off a ladder?”

“No, sir. She’s crying.”

“Crying,” Darius repeated blankly. She had seemed cheerful enough when he left her. They’d had a strange conversation, true, a conversation far more deeply personal than he could recall ever having before, with anybody.

Yet he doubted she was weeping over his finances or his typically male need to prove something to his father or his views on marriage. “They do that, you know, Pip,” he said. “Ladies. They can be sentimental.”

“Oh,” said Pip. “I wasn’t sure. I had to chase Daisy up to the

first floor. The cat got out a window, but Daisy stayed there, waiting. Then her head went up, like she heard something, and off she went the other way. She stopped at that room—the one where the lady tripped over the bucket. You remember?”

Darius nodded. He had no trouble remembering how ill she’d been, and how frightened he’d been.

This was very bad, he thought. Fretting over her. Panicking over her. Confiding in her.

He was in trouble.

“I heard a sound and thought maybe what Daisy heard was a rat,” Pip said.

At the word rat, Daisy came to attention.

“But Daisy didn’t go in,” the boy continued. “She only sat there, looking at me “The door was almost closed, but I opened it a little bit and saw her—the younger lady, I mean. She was sitting on the floor, crying. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to tell the other lady and upset her if it wasn’t important. But I didn’t want to do nothing if I was supposed to do something. I knew you’d know what to do.”

“I’d better look into it,” Darius said. “It could be simply…ahem.” Though Pip seemed to understand the basics of mating, he probably had no notion of various related matters. Now was not the time to enlighten him. “Ladies have moods at certain times,” he said. “I’ll get to the bottom of it. Thank you for telling me. You were right not to upset the other women. Crying is contagious among females. They catch it from one another, and the result can be dreadful. You have discretion beyond your years, young Pip.”

He rose, patted Pip on the shoulder, and, squaring his own, set off to deal with the fearsome phenomenon of a weeping female.

Now it’s too late, I see what a fool I was. We might have run away. What could Papa do? He had no money to chase after us, no power to destroy us. We might have run away and wed. I could have given myself to Richard. Then Papa would have had no choice. We would have to wed. There’s always a choice, as Richard said. I should have chosen. I should not have let others choose for me.

Now I am off Papa’s hands. He has his money, which he will surely gamble away, as he did all the money he had before, and no one cares about me.

No one knows or cares that I had a chance for happiness.

Now it is gone, forever.

Richard is dead.

I wish I had the courage to join him, but I ever was a coward. The same coward I was then, when I had a choice and a chance, and let them browbeat me and tell me what my duty was.