A Scandalous Plan Read online

  Theresa wondered if the girl was saying that trying to shock her, for no one in polite society should have spoken of such things. But no, Theresa did not think the intent was to shock. Angelica had a hurt look in her blue eyes.

  “Do you remember your mother?” Theresa was aware that Jacob had gotten even closer, his eyes fixed on her face. He touched her cheek once and then slipped away from her, wandering the room, touching things and humming.

  “Just as a smell, or a feeling.” The girl blinked and frowned, fighting back a tear that was threatening to trickle from her left eye. She sniffed. “I was only four when . . . when it happened. Governess said Mama was too old and that she had no business marrying a young man like my father and having children. It wasn’t natural and she was being punished for trying to move up the . . . the ‘social ladder’ improperly.”

  Theresa felt a slow anger burn. She would have to make sure that governess never came back, poisoning a child’s mind against her poor dead mother that way! “That is incorrect and your governess was a very ignorant woman.”

  “Ah, here you all are,” Mr. Martindale said, striding into the room. He rubbed his hands together and clapped them once. “Shall we have some tea, and maybe some biscuits? Lady Theresa, would you do us the honor of taking a late tea with us? I know it isn’t the done thing to eat this time of day, nor to take tea with company, but I’m so very grateful to you for rescuing Jacob and I’m also famished. Where is Jacob?”

  Theresa said, “He’s behind the large blue sofa trying to pretend that he has escaped us.”

  Angelica’s eyes widened and she raced around the sofa and dragged him out by his shirt collar. “How did you know that? I didn’t notice him hiding there.”

  “If you have ever hunted a chiffchaff in a copse of alders,” Theresa said, “you would know that one keeps one’s eyes and wits sharp if one is to see where their nests are. I have excellent vision and hearing. A boy is a great deal larger than a chiffchaff.” She was disconcerted to see Mr. Martindale trying to suppress a smile. What was there to smile over?

  “Shall we have tea in the summerhouse?” he said. “I’ve just had it cleaned out; it should be lovely this time of day. Cooler.”

  “Certainly,” Theresa said, standing. “I will follow you, sir.”

  • • •

  What an odd young lady she was, James thought, watching her demonstrating to Angelica the proper way to pour tea. In his few conversations with local people, before they learned of Jacob’s problems and began to shun him, he had heard that she was a spinster and over thirty. She had lovely skin, clear gray eyes, and a regal manner, but no one would mistake her for a dewy twenty-year-old. She was not pretty, more handsome getting perilously close to plain, and unmarried with a good reputation. He would have to be careful.

  Dora, a maidservant, brought a covered tray out to the summerhouse and laid it down on the rustic table, curtseyed, and took the cover off to reveal sandwiches: tongue and cress and goose liver paté. There were also some delicate petits fours and seed cake.

  James stared at the tray. He hadn’t ordered this, nor had he had any idea they even had such delicacies in the house. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford it; he could afford whatever they wanted, for he had made his fortune and was very well off indeed. But where had it come from?

  “Lady Theresa, you seem to have brought good fortune with you, for I have never had such a lovely repast.”

  “On our way out she snuck into the kitchen and told Cook that you worked very hard and deserved a proper luncheon and that if she didn’t provide it she ought to be ashamed,” Angelica said, calmly taking a tongue sandwich and biting into it with relish.

  A very managing female. And one looking for a husband? She was calmly handing Jacob a cress sandwich and telling him where cress came from and how to gather it. The boy appeared to be listening, though he opened the sandwich and picked out the green herb and ate it first, and then the bread and butter. Lady Theresa seemed not the slightest perturbed.

  “So, have you managed to browbeat my nurseman, Bobby Turner, yet?” he said wryly, taking a paté sandwich and finding it very good. “Where on earth did Cook get this marvelous paté? And why haven’t we had this before?” he mumbled, chewing.

  “I brought the tongue, paté, and cress. The tongue is from the village butcher—if you bully him adequately, he will have Mrs. Butcher cook it to perfection for you—the paté my own cook makes, and the cress I gathered myself.”

  He swallowed. She was watching him with a measuring look as he ate, and he just knew she was measuring him for a wedding suit. The unmitigated gall, he thought, trying to work up some anger toward her. She was ordering his life already, though he barely knew her. The anger was being stifled by his mouth watering over the wonderful taste of the paté. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was.

  Angelica, her gaze flicking back and forth between her father and their guest, said, “Papa, Lady Theresa says she can show us where to get the cress.”

  “Hmm. How did you manage to intimidate my cook into compliance in such a short time?”

  “I’m an excellent manager of staff,” she said with a challenging tilt to her head.

  “I’m a good manager myself, Lady Theresa,” he said. “I have successfully built my business into one of the best cloth manufacturers in England. My mills now produce cloth for military garments, flags, upholstery, drapery fabric—”

  “I haven’t disparaged your own abilities, sir, by claiming my own,” she said with a lift to her eyebrows. “I’m sure you are a very good manager . . . of your manufactory.”

  It went without saying that his vaunted abilities had not stopped his son from almost tumbling into the stew pond. He huffed a bit into his collar, but Jacob was watching him—still eating cress but watching his father, too—and so he couldn’t retort as he would like to.

  “I intend to engage a housekeeper. The last one left a week ago. She was not suitable anyway.” She had quit over a dispute with the cook, in truth, but he hadn’t liked her. She had a mean spirit and said despicable things about Jacob when she thought he could not hear.

  “So you have, in three weeks, lost a governess and a housekeeper. Female staff are troublesome to you.”

  “Females of all sort are troublesome to me,” he said, and then regretted his rash words almost immediately, despite their honesty. He had been plagued, in London, with the attentions of numerous ladies looking for a husband. That his newly minted fortune came from trade didn’t wholly exclude him, since, as the younger son of a viscount, he had aristocratic ties to counter the ugly business in which he was engaged.

  He was about to frame a reply to delicately say as much, but she surprised him by standing.

  “Mr. Martindale, would you consent to allowing your daughter to come for a ride about the countryside with me? I’m on my way to visit a gentleman who has broken his leg and lives alone. I am taking him some of the same tongue we have been enjoying, and I would very much like Miss Martindale’s company.”

  “I suppose . . . if Angelica would like to go, but I doubt if she would.”

  “I would like to go, Papa. May I?”

  He shrugged. “I shall order your gig, my lady.”

  Three

  Her abrupt departure was motivated by nothing less than Mr. Martindale’s transparency. In her gig, ribbons firmly in her hands, Theresa glanced over at the girl beside her.

  “Your father thinks I’m after him to marry,” she said, clicking at her mare.

  The girl giggled. “Do you think so? How bigheaded of him.”

  “I suppose he has been approached by his share of ladies with matrimony in mind,” Theresa said grimly. “I just don’t happen to be one of them.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t wish to marry.”

  “Ever?”

  The country lane narrowed, and a cart drawn by two heavy, plodding draft horses trundled down the middle. Theresa pulled to the left and waited for it to pa
ss. “One should never say never,” she said. “That’s like saying that you never intend to die. I suppose there is a certain inevitability about some things. Someday, perhaps when I am old, I may want companionship. Until then . . .” She glanced away.

  With unnerving perspicacity, Angelica said, “Did a gentleman disappoint you?”

  Ruefully, Theresa glanced sideways at the girl. That was an episode in her past to which no one who knew her referred. “I suppose I cannot draw back now from the rather informal conversation we engage in.”

  “At least you talk to me,” she said glumly. “Papa only ever shouts or warns or commands. ‘Angelica, watch out for Jacob.’ ‘Angelica, I told you to mind your brother.’ It is fatiguing.”

  Theresa shouted out loud with laughter and her horse snorted in sympathy and danced a little. She settled the mare down and said, “The way you said that was so very much like a London belle. ‘It is fatiguing.’ You will do very well with the languid air so many ladies must cultivate.”

  “What is it like? London and the season,” Angelica asked, eyes shining.

  “London?” She was not unhappy that the subject of her disappointment at the hands of a gentleman was dropped, and so she gladly engaged in conversation about the London season, a topic she well knew. “London during the season is the most fascinating place I would never want to live. There’s so much to do and see, and there is no better place to shop. I must show you some watered silk I brought back with me this season. It is exquisite!”

  Angelica sighed happily. “I would love above all things to see it. May I come to your house?”

  “Of course. We’ll ask your father when I return you. But first, on to Mr. Gudge’s home. Poor old curmudgeon; he broke his leg some time ago, so you mustn’t mind his bad temper.” She clicked and her mare smartened her pace.

  They spent the rest of their afternoon talking about London. Angelica was a sharp and avid listener, and the day passed quickly. Theresa couldn’t remember when she enjoyed her charity visits so very much.

  • • •

  “. . . and I would like two pounds of the tongue sent to Meadowlark Mansion,” Theresa said the next morning to Butcher. “If Mrs. Butcher would be so kind as to prepare it the way she does for me, I would be much obliged.”

  No one stared to see such an eminent lady in the butcher’s shop, for everyone had known Lady Theresa since long before her hair was put up, and everyone knew that she never left anything that was important to her to anyone else to do. Food rated high on her list of important things. Even while her mother was alive—and that lady had only died five years before—Lady Theresa had had the handling of all the household duties, for Lady Leighton was an ethereal beauty with not one whit of common sense. Her husband and daughter adored her for that and protected her from any unpleasantness, such as having to tell Cook what to make for dinner. Thus, Lady Theresa had grown up as a “managing woman.”

  When the village ladies waiting for her to finish her order with Butcher heard the destination of the two pounds of tongue there was general dismay, a feeling that hung in the air like an odor of which no one would speak. Theresa frowned at the sly side glances Mrs. Greavely traded with Dame Alice, wife of a local knight.

  Theresa had always been fond of Dame Alice, and so was surprised to see her in agreement with Mrs. Greavely on any front. She had thought better of the woman than that. As Theresa left the butcher shop, the two women followed, and the bolder of the two, Mrs. Greavely, accosted her.

  “Lady Theresa, are we to understand you have not only been to that house but are now taking over the management of it?”

  Pausing only momentarily, Theresa answered, “Not at all.” She began to walk again, sparing a glance up at the sodden skies. A distant rumble of thunder rolled across the heavens and she quickened her pace, only to find the two women accompanying her.

  Dame Alice, trotting with them like a fat cob after racehorses, said, between puffs of breath, “I’m sure Mr. Martindale is very nice, but that son of his . . . there’s a reason God made him like that. Evil somewhere in that family!”

  Theresa stopped abruptly and swiveled to look at the two women. “Is that what this is all about? Some superstitious nonsense about that poor boy? I’m ashamed of you both!”

  Dame Alice looked away nervously, but Mrs. Greavely bridled and said, “Lady Theresa, there are things in this world that we don’t understand. There’s a reason no decent family keeps their idiots. It is unlucky and against God. And Mrs. Hurst says the boy soured milk just by looking at it! She also said that—”

  “Stop!” Theresa felt her face redden. Thunder rumbled ominously. “Mrs. Hurst—may I assume she was the recently dismissed housekeeper for Mr. Martindale?—is an ignorant old besom! Jacob is a dear, sweet child who—”

  Mrs. Greavely thrust her face close to Theresa’s. “Lady Theresa, mark my words, that boy is cursed. And so the whole family because that man has not the sense to put his boy decently away somewhere with someone to look after him. And it is the girl who will suffer for it. I hear she is wild and incorrigible already. Mrs. Hurst says she has an unnatural affinity for the stable boys. Was seen talking to them, just as bold as may be. No good will come of it, mark my words. And we do not want that kind of folk buying Meadowlark!”

  So this was the kind of filth that was being spewed about the Martindales. And the poor man just wanted somewhere to “decently” raise his children! And Angelica! What chance would she have if she was labeled early as a wanton? It was despicable, and Theresa was just about to open her mouth to say as much when the heavens opened and sheets of rain lashed down, driven by a sudden wind. She said a hasty farewell and raced on to the drapers.

  She had much to think of and much more to plan. This contemptible meanness in her village couldn’t go unchallenged, but she must tread carefully and summon every bit of knowledge of village ways to her aid. She would not let Jacob and Angelica suffer. In that moment Mr. Martindale’s handsome smile rose to mind. He would make a valuable addition to their village social circle if he decided to buy Meadowlark mansion, and she must see that he had every reason to stay.

  For the children’s sake.

  Four

  James Martindale sat, head in his hands, thinking that perhaps he ought to move back to London and forget his plan of becoming a country gentleman. What was he doing, after all? He had just had to sack another servant, one of the grooms, for saying that Jacob gave a mare the evil eye and caused it to miscarry its foal. It was not that country folk were more ignorant than town folk—he had heard his share of rude comments from those in his town household, and from supposedly more enlightened people, too—but in London he had already weeded out the empty-headed among his staff. However, only a few of his London people had come with him, and a country house required a larger staff. How was he ever to do here what he had done in London? He did not know whether he could face that long process again, nor subject Jacob and Angelica to the turmoil during it.

  Perhaps he should let go of this house and return to London.

  “Mr. Martindale,” said Dora, curtseying at the doorway of the library. “Lady Theresa to see you, sir. Said it was private, she did.” The girl’s eyes were wide with curiosity.

  He could not complain about a little inquisitiveness though, since the girl was excellent with Jacob. In fact, he was considering hiring her as nursemaid since Jacob seemed more amenable to her gentle coaxing than Bobby Turner’s bluff commands. “Send her in,” he said. “And leave the door open!” He had no wish to accidentally compromise Lady Theresa into marriage, especially when he was unsure of her motives in visiting so frequently and befriending Angelica. He had met his share of curiosity seekers, as well as marriage-minded young ladies. He would satisfy neither.

  “Mr. Martindale,” she said, sailing forth, hand extended.

  He stood and shook hands and offered her a seat. Instead, she restlessly paced to the window and gazed out over the landscape, the view overlooking the
stables and rolling hills behind. She turned and clasped her hands in front of her.

  “You have a problem,” she began without preamble.

  He stayed silent, regarding her steadily, taking in her neat, absolutely correct mode of dress and her angular figure. She certainly did not look like the normal husband hunter in his experience. “Do I?”

  “You do.”

  She glanced at the open door and walked toward it, but he said quickly, “I ask that it remain open, my lady.”

  She whirled and faced him, her lips primmed into a straight gash across her face. “Now see here, Mr. Martindale,” she said, her tone stern. “I am not now nor will I ever be in the market for a husband, and if I were, I can assure you I would not seek to entrap him in that manner. I would think that my personal recommendations are not so . . . so lacking that I would need to resort to such means.”

  He felt himself color at her straightforward assessment of his fears. How had she inferred that from his simple words? “I . . . I assure you, my lady—”

  “Never mind,” she said, waving off his faltering apology and pacing over to a table. She restlessly turned over a gilt-edged book and stared at the title. “I know there are ladies who will resort to such means, and you don’t know me from Adam, so what should I expect? I know I have been audacious and unusual in my approach to your family.” She looked up directly into his eyes. “You interest me. Jacob and Angelica interest me. But I am concerned.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes.” She glanced again at the door but did not cross to it. Finally, she moved toward James and sat down. He sat opposite her.

  Lowering her voice and leaning forward, she said, “There’s talk in the village. Cruel talk. I don’t like to admit it, but St. Mark-on-Locke is afflicted with the usual number of gossips, backbiters, and vicious minds. In London when one meets with such people, one can exclude them from one’s circle, or at least keep one’s distance. That’s impossible in a village the size of St. Mark.”