A Scandalous Plan Read online

  She spoke, he thought, from experience, and he gazed at her curiously. He had heard tell of a broken engagement, but he would never pry.

  “I fear my own staff is the worst,” he confessed. He clutched his head and thrust his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know what to do but go back to London, where at least I have narrowed my staff down to those whom I can trust.”

  “That is closing yourself and your children off from society. Would you,” she said carefully, glancing down at the floor, “care to stay at Meadowlark if you could find peace?”

  “I like the house,” he said, glancing around him. “It reminds me of the house I grew up in. I was raised in the country and miss it profoundly. I’d like my children to have that same experience, but I’m afraid things are not such with my family—my father, in particular—as to allow visits there.” He was silent for a minute and patted down his tousled hair. Sighing, he finally said, “Yes, I would like to stay, but I won’t have Jacob subjected to the petty cruelty of small minds. He deserves better than that, as does Angelica.”

  “I agree completely!” she exclaimed, hitting the arm of her chair. “And I would help, if I may.”

  She told him much he didn’t know, and it was worse even than he feared. The housekeeper he had let go, Mrs. Hurst, had spread her vile poison among the villagers; now with the stableman let go, it would likely spread to any who hadn’t already heard. He appreciated Lady Theresa’s honesty, but it seemed to him that the outlook was bleak.

  He came, sometime in the half hour they spoke, to trust her motives. “Whatever you think we should do, my lady, I’ll go along with. I’m willing to place myself in your hands.”

  “Sir, if you said that to a husband-hunting lady, she would be booking the parson.” When he chuckled she smiled back at him and said, as she stood and extended her hand, “I look forward to the challenge, Mr. Martindale.”

  He stood and took her hand to shake. She had removed her gloves, and her hands, large for a woman and with a capable look about them, were very soft and cool to the touch. He felt a fleeting moment of attraction but dismissed it. He liked women, so it should not be surprising to him, that sensation. He had been attracted to many women in his life, from chambermaids right up to duchesses, but it didn’t mean anything but that he liked women.

  He doubted she noticed or felt for him anything but a friendly interest. She had made her motives clear; she wanted to help Jacob and Angelica, and incidentally, him. He thought she might be relieving boredom, too, but gave her too much credit to think that was her primary motive.

  “May I see Angelica now?” she said brightly, her voice oddly breathless. “I have some fabric I wanted her to look at. She is going to be thirteen soon and is growing quickly; she will need new dresses.”

  “I’ll go find her.”

  • • •

  Once he was gone, Theresa let out her breath on a long sigh. The touch of his skin against hers had been like an electrical spark on a dry day. His hand was warm and large, engulfing hers, and he had squeezed with just the right amount of pressure, like a hug that makes one tingle.

  She hadn’t felt that from a mere handshake since—

  Since Paolo. Paolo and the debacle that followed were consigned to that territory of rarely remembered memories. He was a Spanish diplomat’s son and she met him in London the spring after her mother died. She had not even been planning to go to London that year, but her father was traveling and she was at loose ends, so though she still had a few more weeks in half mourning, she had gone to stay at her aunt’s house in Mayfair, to join in what limited activities were suitable.

  And then she had met Paolo. She was twenty-five and he twenty-two, but she fell for him with all the desperate infatuation of a lonely girl with her first love. And he had seemed to feel the same. She suggested marriage to him, he acquiesced, but then deserted her, running back to Spain and the girl to whom he was affianced. She hadn’t known about Señorita Vasquez and the understanding between them that had existed since their early childhood.

  The worst part was she had, in fairness, to acquit him of the worst kind of chicanery. He had been kind and gentle and had listened to her talk for hours about her fey, adorable mother and how much she missed her. She had been the one to suggest marriage, to ask him, in point of fact. He had been gallant, he had been evasive, but she had heard enough to send an announcement to the papers.

  She had been wrong. He fled London, she feared, to avoid having to tell her to her face that they couldn’t be engaged, would never marry. He had an arranged marriage to a distant relative in his near future.

  She had been a fool.

  After, all of London had tales of his conquests, and it appeared that she had been just one of many. Ladies of all types and ages and appearances claimed he had made love to them, offered them marriage, seduced them with his dark good looks. She supposed she would never know the truth, what she had meant to him, how much of what the other women said was true.

  She had been so sure she was his one and only love. What did that say about her perspicacity as a woman that she could be so misled, mostly, it seemed, by her own desires and needs? On that bleak thought she was interrupted by Angelica and forced to put a smile on her face. She put Paolo from her mind and focused instead on the girl in front of her.

  • • •

  She spent much of the next two days with the Martindale family, assessing their strengths, watching them and listening to their conversation.

  Mr. Martindale was not the problem. He was presentable—handsome, actually, with dazzling eyes and—

  She restrained her wayward thoughts. He was presentable and had a good family history, being the younger son of the Viscount St. Boniface. He was intelligent, likable, and canny, though frightfully naïve about people. He expected people to judge him based on his actions and integrity. Unfortunately, ofttimes being good, kind, hardworking, quiet, and gentle made others feel inadequate by comparison. One jealous or bitter person could spread buckets of poison, and folks were ever willing to listen to the worst about a person.

  She would have to work around that determined naïveté, she decided.

  It came down to the children, Jacob in particular. Maybe someday the world would understand more about what happened in the mind to create a child like Jacob, silent, withdrawn, sometimes totally focused on one object—like her bird-adorned hat—and at other times content to just stare off into the sky for hours. But until that day, an enlightened day when those whose minds did not work as everyone else’s were not seen as evil, then subterfuge was called for.

  Not that she minded subterfuge. She was afraid she was often far more devious than people knew, even those closest to her. In Angelica she saw a possible confederate, for the girl was as crafty and cunning as herself at that same age, she thought, and as willing to manipulate people.

  How to enlist her aid?

  Bribery usually worked.

  Five

  “What do you want, Angelica?”

  Theresa and her young friend strolled by the banks of the stream on the Leighton property while the girl visited. It was not quite Midsummer Day—it was actually the first day of summer—and the air buzzed with bees visiting the wildflowers along the stream.

  “What do you mean?” Angelica asked, pulling a long stem of grass and chewing on the end.

  “Very simply, what do you want? You could tell me what you want from life, a philosophical outlook. Or you could tell me what you want this minute . . . like lunch!” She laughed. “Or, you could tell me what you want soon, an amber necklace, or an amethyst ring. When I was your age I longed for an amethyst ring. My mother found out.” She put forward her hand and showed the delicate filigree ring with a pale amethyst, the purple glowing in the midday sun. “She designed this for me.”

  Angelica gazed at it. “I wish my mother had lived.”

  “I wish she had too.” Theresa put her arm over the girl’s shoulders as they strolled, the long grass
swishing around their skirts, daisies brushing their fingers. In just a few days she had come to care for the child. “She must have loved you very much to name you ‘Angelica.’ It’s a very pretty name.”

  “My governess told me she named me for the candied herb because she had low tastes and liked sweetmeats.”

  “And how did she know that?” Theresa said acidly. “I cannot suppose the wretched woman was there at the hour of your birth. No family engages a governess for a newborn infant.”

  Angelica looked startled. “I guess that’s true. Do you think mother named me just because—”

  “Because she loved you and you were her angel.”

  “Oh.”

  There was silence for a few minutes. The air was warm and still, laden with the scents of grass and clover. They were supposed to be out gathering herbs and wildflowers for their Midsummer Eve wreathes. Theresa began to gather daisies, piling them near the stream bank, and Angelica followed her example.

  “Does your father never talk about your mother?”

  “No. I think it’s just because she died so long ago.” She found some pinkish daisies and gathered a handful, laying them with the others. “And he worries about Jacob all the time and doesn’t think of anything else.”

  Bitterness laced her voice. Theresa would bet that if the girl could wish for anything it would be more time with her father. That was something she could not promise the child. However, maybe James Martindale would stay and they could work on that part of their lives a little more.

  “Ah, here is what I have been looking for,” she said, distracted as she found the herb most important to their Midsummer wreathes. “This is St. John’s wort. Of course, since Midsummer Day is also St. John’s Day, it’s very important to weave in this particular plant.”

  They gathered the delicate green herb, protecting the yellow blossoms, and put it with the daisies and grasses they had already gathered. Together they sat down in the long grass by the stream, and Theresa showed Angelica how to plait the grasses into a wreath, working in the daisies and St. John’s wort.

  “What will we do with them?” the girl asked, holding hers up and examining it critically.

  “In the country St. John’s Eve, or Midsummer Eve, as I still call it, is very important and can have great affect on the crops even. The evening of the twenty-third of June, on a high hill, a great fire will be set and folks will stay up all night. These wreathes will be hung on doors and over stables.” Theresa worked quickly, her long fingers whipping the grass into plaited circlets with delicate fronds of daisies and the all-important herb worked in.

  “Why is it so important?”

  “Magical things happen that night. And one man in the village will jump over the Midsummer fire flames. How high he jumps will be how high the crops grow.”

  “What a lot of rubbish!”

  “Profane child,” Theresa laughed, tossing one wreath up into the air, where it spun for a moment, framing the sun.

  “But isn’t this all very . . . heathenish?”

  “That’s why the church insists we celebrate St. John the Baptist’s day, rather than Midsummer. But the old ways last, especially among the most superstitious. My mother believed in the old ways.” Theresa stacked her wreathes in a pile and said, “I will send William back to fetch these. We have made far too many to carry. I suppose we should go back for luncheon.”

  “May I carry mine?” Angelica said, gazing down at her thick circlet of grass and daisies.

  “Certainly.”

  They started back along the stream bank, the lush grass thick and the stream sluggish.

  “So what do you want?” Theresa asked, glancing sideways at her young friend. “Say, this summer?”

  “I want a pony,” she said quickly. “A white one. And I want to ride!”

  “Have you never learned to ride?”

  “No. Father’s afraid if I learn, Jacob will want to, and then he’ll be in danger because he has no sense.”

  “Is that true?”

  “That Jacob has no sense? Sometimes he acts that way, but . . . I don’t know. I wonder.”

  “You wonder if he just causes trouble to get attention?”

  The girl looked up at her swiftly. “Do you think so?”

  “It’s possible. I did that on occasion. So, what would you do in return for a white pony and riding lessons?”

  “Do?”

  “Nothing in life is free . . . or very little anyway,” Theresa said. More of her cynical philosophy. She really must be more careful that she did not create a world-weary child. Misanthropy was very unattractive. “I don’t mean that. Love is free. I know your father loves you both. You never need to do anything to earn that love, either.”

  Angelica reflected on that for a few moments and nodded, as if she accepted that statement. True or not, Theresa hoped it was at least what she needed to hear.

  “I would do anything for a white pony!” Angelica put her pretty, lopsided wreath on her head and hugged herself, dancing in the long grass, her white dress whirling around and her long hair streaming out.

  Theresa caught her breath. The child was breathtaking, her expression joyful in the sun-filled meadow. She suddenly laughed and danced with her, whirling, arms spread wide, face turned up to the sun, feeling the joy of childhood once again. She and her mother had done this, Lady Leighton, fey and unpredictable, dancing wildly like a gypsy.

  Finally they both fell down, breathless and laughing in the long grass, staring up at the sky while their breathing returned to something like normal. It was said, Theresa reflected, as she gazed dizzily up at the sun, that if you stayed out all night on Midsummer Eve you could end up with the talents of the immortal bard, or you could just end up insane, or you could be taken away by the fairies. Lady Leighton was rumored to have spent that one Midsummer night among the fairies. She was “fairy-touched,” magical but fearsome, too, in her supernatural powers. She had gained a reputation as a healer and good-luck charm. For her to visit a household was said to bring instant good luck. Money would arrive when it was most needed. A creditor would send a notice that a bill had been mysteriously paid. It was magical! So though the most superstitious feared her, a visit from her was still coveted and she was never insulted by anyone.

  Oddly, few caught on to Lady Leighton’s subtle probing, her delicate way of finding out what was plaguing a troubled family. The old reverend knew, but he was from the previous century and his respect for Lady Leighton’s position in society kept him silent. The countess wanted no credit when she helped someone, so she would do things in secret and shrug when someone mentioned it. She had not purposely set out to become a fairy godmother to the village of St. Mark, but it had happened anyway. She was a good-luck charm.

  A good-luck charm. Theresa sat up and stared off at the misty hills. The village had been without such a talisman since Lady Leighton’s death five years before. Maybe it was time they had one again. Maybe it was time Midsummer Eve worked its magic.

  • • •

  James Martindale stomped back up to the house from a loud confrontation with the farm manager. A desire to do things a new way was met with stubborn refusal and an oft-repeated phrase he was coming to loathe: ’Tis not the way it’s aught been done.

  He had negotiated in the lease for the rights to farm the immediate acreage, though the far fields were rented out. But Puget, the farm manager, only said that since he was not the owner he had no right to change how things had been done for generations. The man didn’t care that the land was producing poorly. He didn’t care that the topsoil was being systematically blown into the stream by over-tilling. Things had always been done one way, so that was how it should stay. If Mr. Martindale were the owner, he would have no choice but to comply, he said.

  He slammed into the house, threw his boots at his distraught valet, and demanded luncheon in the library, where he would not be disturbed. The butler was saying something to him, but he didn’t listen, storming in his stocki
ng feet into the library.

  He should have listened. There in the library was Lady Theresa with both Jacob and Angelica. His first instinct was to turn and leave, but the lady looked up from her book and smiled, and he was caught.

  Her nose was red; so was Angelica’s. They looked sunburned, but happy.

  “Mr. Martindale,” she said, standing. “I brought this book on the history of St. Mark-on-Locke and was showing the children. If you do decide to stay, I thought they should know more about their home.”

  Jacob was sitting cross-legged on a chair and he had in his arms a rag doll. He hugged it to him and rocked back and forth.

  “If I have to deal with Puget again I swear I will leave this . . .” He stopped before he swore, took a deep breath and sat.

  “You’re in your stockings again, though I suppose that’s an improvement over muddy bare feet.”

  “I thought I would be alone. I thought you and Angelica were still out, and that Dora would have Jacob.”

  “Puget is one of the best managers in the area, Mr. Martindale. What problem are you having with him?”

  Oddly, explaining it all to Lady Theresa and the children, and having them laugh at his troubles, calmed him. When his luncheon came he was able to share it out to the children—Lady Theresa said that she and Angelica had already dined, but his daughter gladly took another sandwich—and eat his own share washed down by liberal tankards of ale. He hadn’t realized he was so hungry.

  “Where did you get the doll, son?” he asked, watching Jacob cradle the rag baby as he ate cress.

  “I brought it,” Theresa said. “It was what I used to play with when I was a child, and I remember how soothing I found it.”

  “He is not a baby, my lady.”

  “No, but comfort is comfort. One never outgrows certain needs.”