Lady of the Lock Read online

  “Do I wish she preferred me?” Lord Jeremy returned after a sharp look at his brother. “Indeed I do, for I have a far better chance of wearing down Carewe’s objections than you do. But she never had eyes for anyone but you. I saw that quite clearly when you came to Bath. The pain of it was enough to keep me from objecting when you whisked me away, for I clearly saw that to her I was never more than the infantry, a sad reminder of the Challenor she preferred.”

  “Jeremy, I’m sor—”

  “Don’t be. Every young man must suffer first love, and I pride myself that I chose the Lady of the Lock rather than some grasping harpy from the corps de ballet.”

  “I would venture,” Bourne returned slowly, “that the Challenor men have outstanding taste in women.”

  “If only Papa might join us in our admiration of true quality.”

  Bourne shook his head, a rueful smile curling his lips. “Jer, I do believe you have depths I have never fully appreciated before. Have you considered running for Parliament?”

  Jeremy’s guffaw rang out over the terrace. “I’ve a full two years before I reach my majority.”

  “Nonetheless, consider it. Carewe’s bound to have a borough or two in his pocket. I think you would do very well.”

  Jeremy’s youthful face turned grim. “But what about you? The Mainwaring chit and the rest of her ilk will bring you nothing but agony. So what are you going to do?”

  Bourne rested both hands on the parapet, his gaze fixed on an elaborate garden dimly lit by torches. “Nothing,” he said at last. “Absolutely nothing. No one can snap me up in parson’s mousetrap without my consent. The octopi can go to the devil. I do not consent.”

  “And Miss Merriwether?”

  Bourne turned sharply, giving his brother a clap on the shoulder that nearly sent him reeling. “What was that you said about staying out all night? Let’s be off!”

  As they made their way through the crush of the Bartholomew’s soirée, the Challenor brothers took great care to avoid the ballroom.

  Carewe House, the town residence of the Challenor family, took up half of one side of Grosvenor Square. A semi-circular carriage drive, fenced and gated in towering black iron, ran beneath a graceful portico, assuring guests protection from London’s frequently inclement weather. Rows of spotlessly clean windows overlooked the fenced central green, where nurses sat on benches watching their young charges run and play. Behind the mansion stretched perfectly manicured gardens and a mews holding the impressive array of vehicles and horses the duke deemed necessary for his comfort.

  For close on twenty years Bourne had taken Carewe House and all that went with it for granted. His Papa was a duke, he would one day be a duke, and all this would be his. And then the day came when he had driven his curricle home from Oxford, eager to enjoy what was left of the Season, and paused, motionless, seeing what he had never seen before. This magnificence was only one of a dozen properties owned by the Duke of Carewe. With the dukedom came not only responsibility for every one of them but for the people who lived on each estate. As Duke of Carewe, Bourne would sit in the House of Lords and be expected to know what he was doing, to understand the great issues of the day and make decisions that would affect Britain, her colonies, and all those who interacted with her—which was at least fifty percent of the known world.

  Later, Bourne realized he must have sat for ten minutes that day, frozen to his curricle’s seat, as reality engulfed him and the last lingering bits of childhood died. The Marquess of Montsale might enjoy himself—within the bounds of reason—but he must never forget he would one day be Carewe.

  And now he was doing it again. Sitting in his curricle, while his groom stood at his horses’ heads, a quizzical look on his face, and Phelps, the butler, waited at the open front door, not bothering to hide a frown. The devil fly away with them all! Undoubtedly, his mother had summoned him for a scold about not offering for the sainted Christabel. No, no, Maman would never be such a fool. She had to know that Lady Christabel, like her mother, was a sharp-tongued shrew who thought of nothing but gowns, entertainment, and her position in society from morn ’til night.

  With a grimace, Bourne descended from his curricle, handed his hat, gloves, and driving coat to Phelps, and strode toward the cheerful morning room at the back of the house which his mother always favored this time of day. Except that today the skies were gray, with a mizzle just beginning. A good match for his mood.

  “Maman.” Bourne bowed, then lifted his mother’s hand to his lips.

  At the sight of her elder son, Lady Carewe’s blue eyes sparkled like those of a girl at her first ball. “It is not my hand you should be kissing,” she retorted, but her lips curled in a smile that belied her words. Twenty-three years might have passed since Lady Carewe presented her husband with an heir, but many considered her beauty enhanced, rather than faded, by the passing of time. If she had any gray hairs, they were well hidden among her golden blonde locks. An exemplary political hostess, she could converse with anyone on nearly any subject. “As shrewd as they come,” Bourne’s friends decreed, and he could only agree.

  “You know hand-kissing is quite out of fashion,” Bourne returned easily. “If I did it to anyone but you and grandmère I would be a laughing-stock.”

  “No one would dare!” the duchess proclaimed, even as her eyes twinkled, thoroughly enjoying their banter. “Sit down, Bourne. I would hear how you are enjoying the Season.”

  He chose a well-upholstered barrel chair and summoned a look of innocence his mother recognized only too well from numerous childhood escapades. “I have enjoyed Jeremy’s company in town. We have had some splendid times.”

  The duchess pursed her lips. “But your forays into ton events have not been quite so splendid, I take it.”

  “Not at all, Maman. Some were . . . amusing and–ah–quite colorful. The punch at the Edgerton’s was very fine.”

  “Let us have the wood with no bark on it, Montsale. You and Jeremy have avoided as many ton events as you possibly could.”

  Bourne stifled a wince. He might as well be blunt, for clearly they were found out. “In truth, Maman, I have been avoiding certain rapacious young ladies and their mamas. Jeremy is guiltless. He has merely been keeping me company.”

  “If a London full of young misses does not attract you, I am surprised you did not stay in the country.”

  Devil it, her words might as well have been well-aimed cannon-shot. The conversation had taken a nasty turn. Bourne jumped to his feet, did a fast turn about the room. “Maman,” he said through clenched teeth, you know quite well that if I were not in London, Carewe would insist on my presence at one of his estates. Anywhere, as long as I was not at High Meadows.”

  “Sit down, Montsale,” the duchess snapped. “I cannot keep craning my neck to follow you about the room. Such agitation is not becoming, even though it reveals a good deal of what I wanted to know. Now,” she declared when her son was seated, “tell me about her.”

  He toyed with the idea of being impertinent, of asking whom she meant, but it was hopeless. A ragging about Lady Christabel and Lady Olympia he could have borne, but this . . .

  “I am certain Grandmère and Lady Pontesbury have acquainted you with all the details about Miss Merriwether.”

  “They have indeed, and it might surprise you to know your grandmère rather likes the girl.”

  Bourne’s head snapped up. “You jest.”

  “Indeed not. Though my mama-in-law and I have not always seen eye to eye, I found her version of events in Bath a most interesting contrast to those of Malvinia Pontesbury.”

  “But Carewe must have expressed himself quite strongly on the matter.”

  The duchess laughed. “My dear boy, Carewe expresses himself strongly on everything. It makes him quite splendid in the House of Lords. At home, I have learned to temper his bombast by listening with only half an ear.”

  Bourne’s lips twitched before he steepled his hands in front of his face, effectively hi
ding a countenance that refused to assume its customary blank façade. “If I were not so well aware of what is owed to my rank and title, Maman, I would be sitting on the bank of the Avon, feasting my eyes on the most beautiful and interesting woman I have ever met. She is intelligent, well-educated, and converses with remarkable skill—perhaps because she has spent her life among men. She is sharp-tongued, but not in the demeaning and nasty way of the Mainwarings. Truthfully, she is a strong-minded termagant, capable of making me feel I have no knowledge of the real world. Yet I am fascinated by her and, if I were Jeremy, I assure you I would not be put off by Papa’s strictures.”

  The duchess, clearly disturbed by her son’s outpouring, raised her hand, waving him to silence. “It appears we have a dilemma of the first magnitude,” she said. “I must, I think, see this girl for myself.”

  “Maman!”

  The duchess, her thoughts shrouded behind long lashes, offered her son a fond smile that somehow managed to be the epitome of noblesse oblige. It seemed he had no choice. Willy-nilly, the Duchess of Carewe had inserted herself into his affairs.

  August 1808

  A weak sun peeked through a narrow opening in the overcast skies, casting a bit of warmth into an unseasonably chilly August along the River Avon. Mandy, who had dragged her camp chair out of the shade of the tent, lifted her face to the pale yellow orb and sighed. She had no right to complain when the cooler temperatures were undoubtedly a boon to the navvies struggling inside the tunnel.

  “My dear.”

  “Yes, Papa?” Mandy turned eagerly toward her father’s voice. This far into construction there were so few tasks left undone, unwelcome tendrils of ennui were threatening her customary enthusiasm for her work. She did, however, enjoy having more time for sketching, her portfolio expanding at a rapid rate. She had even found time to convert a few of her best to watercolors. But not being hard-pressed to keep up with her papa’s demands gave rise to memories she did not want. To dreams she knew she should banish. To agonies, old and new, that would not go away. Devil fly away with the Challenors, with Montsale at the top of the list!

  The sides of the Merriwether’s tent were rolled up, and Mandy could see her father clearly. He was seated at his worktable, where he sketched in each day’s progress and added the calculations that confirmed the tunnel would exit the hillside in the exact place he had designated long years ago. Wordlessly, he lifted a hand and waved her back inside.

  Mandy set her chair down beside her father. “The sun has taken the nip out of the air, Papa. You should go out and enjoy it.”

  “I will enjoy the sun when this thrice-demmed tunnel is complete,” he pronounced with unaccustomed vehemence.

  “Is something wrong, Papa?”

  John Merriwether’s skimmed agitated fingers through his waves of blond hair. “We’re in another patch of earth that crumbles too easily, but that’s nothing new. We’ll manage.” Idly, he tapped a pencil on the edge of the rude worktable. “That is not what I wished to discuss.”

  More tapping while Mandy waited, wariness settling over her.

  “Alan has asked to pay his addresses to you.”

  Mandy sighed. “I trust you told him what you told all the others—that I will not marry until the canal is finished, nor will I engage in any ‘understandings.’”

  “I did, and as it was something he already knew, he took it well, declaring that he had admired you greatly for many years and merely wished to establish that his interest was more than avuncular.”

  Avuncular. Precisely how Mandy saw him . . . but marriage to Alan Tharp would mean a life similar to the one she had. The familiar. The opportunity to build things, do something useful. A kind husband . . . children.

  “That is not all.”

  Mandy’s head came up, startled eyes fixed on her father. More pencil-tapping, a scowl, before he said, “I have had a most surprising letter. An invitation to a houseparty in the Cotswolds in September.”

  Mandy chortled. “Good heavens, Papa, you have come up in the world.” Amusement turned to a frown as a sudden thought occurred to her. No wonder Papa was so uneasy! “Surely . . . not Mrs. Honeycutt.”

  “Do not be absurd,” he huffed. “Mrs. Honeycutt lives quite simply, I assure you. In truth,” he added after staring at the dark mouth of the Challenor Tunnel for long moments that sent Mandy’s curiosity soaring toward exasperation, “the invitation was for both of us. From the Duchess of Carewe for a party in celebration of her eldest son’s birthday.”

  “You are funning me!”

  “No, indeed The letter arrived yesterday, and I have been puzzling over it ever since.”

  Glaring, Mandy crossed her arms over her chest. “It is quite impossible that we should be invited to Castle Carewe.”

  John Merriwether lifted the thick sheet of parchment from his desk and handed it to her. The words were all there, penned in the duchess’s hand, signed far less formally than it might have been: Rosalind Carewe. “Why?” Mandy asked. “How is this possible when neither you nor the duke wish Montsale to pursue my acquaintance?”

  “I fear the duchess did not ask my opinion,” her papa returned with mock humility.

  “I fear she did not ask the duke’s opinion!”

  “An intriguing situation,” John Merriwether agreed. “I considered tearing the invitation into bits and casting it into the river, but after telling all your other suitors they must wait and allow you to make up your mind on your own, I decided it was only fair to allow you to decide what to do about this extraordinary bit of nonsense.”

  “It is likely designed to demonstrate my shortcomings in a house full of the ton’s finest young ladies, who will all be throwing themselves at Montsale as if he could not possibly live another year without taking a wife.”

  “A challenge, my dear, a veritable challenge to which you will rise, like cream, to the top. Shall I accept?”

  “How can we do otherwise? Merriwethers are never cowards!” Mandy proclaimed. But it was as if an earthquake struck the peaceful Wiltshire countryside. The ground shook beneath her feet. Shrubbery, river, tunnel, worktable, her papa swirled around her as her legs noodled. Abruptly, the Lady of the Lock collapsed onto a camp stool, her green eyes staring into space.

  After a glance at his daughter’s ashen face, John Merriwether stared at the duchess’s letter for close to a minute before heaving a sigh and retrieving a piece of his best letter paper. To refuse a duchess and exacerbate his daughter’s anguish was more than any man short of an ogre could bear. He picked up his quill and began to write.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Oh, Papa,” Mandy said, her voice tinged with awe. “May we build a canal in the Cotswolds?”

  John Merriwether chuckled. “There are a few, I believe, though I’m sorry to say I’ve had nothing to do with them.”

  “Everything is so beautiful,” Mandy declared, her nose pressed to the window of the post chaise. “Each High Street seems more charming than the last. “Stone cottages, thatched roofs, flowers everywhere, streams gurgling over granite outcroppings . . . I thought the Avon beautiful, but this . . . it brings tears to my eyes.”

  “You will have no argument from me, my dear.”

  “Do you think . . .?” Mandy, eyes shining, swung ’round to face her father. “Do you think we might someday have a cottage here, just something small with a bit of garden and a small stream running behind it?”

  John shook his head. “Wait until you have spent more than a few hours here, child. Perhaps the beauty is only skin deep.”

  “Never!” Mandy declared. “The people who live here must be truly good souls to keep it looking so fine.”

  “You might wish to rethink the stream,” John suggested mildly. “Each spring you’d run the risk of finding your house awash.”

  “Pa-pa,” Mandy chided, “that is unkind.”

  “That is the voice of an engineer, Amanda Grace. I promise you, an innocent brook in September may be a raging torrent in the spring
.”

  Mandy heaved a sigh and turned back to the window, which at the moment revealed haystacks dotting fields of golden stubble. So far, their journey had not been arduous. They had driven the gig into Marlborough, where they’d left Esmeralda comfortably boarded at an inn, and hired a bright yellow post chaise, known as a Yellow Bounder, to take them to Castle Carewe. Everyone else would be arriving in private coaches, Mandy knew, but at least the Merriwethers would not be traveling on the stage and forced to hire a local conveyance to take them the last few miles to the seat of the dukes of Carewe.

  Beyond the privacy of having the vehicle to themselves, the Bounder was theirs to command, making no stops beyond changing horses and acquiring food. They had spent the night in Oxford and were now traveling north, with the scenery growing more lovely by the moment. And Castle Carewe? For a brief while Mandy’s qualms had been lost in the beauty of the Cotswolds, but now all her fears came crashing back. What was she doing here? How could she have agreed to accept the invitation? The men would look at her (or over her) as if she were a cuckoo in the nest, and the women would crucify her. She should beg Papa to turn around this very minute and . . .

  But she wouldn’t, of course she wouldn’t. The curiosity she shared with her father propelled them both. One did not reject an invitation to one of the most fabled castles in the land, even though the price they would pay was likely to be high.

  “Do you think it’s much farther?” Mandy asked, her voice wan, revealing her inner turmoil.

  “I believe it must be close now. The post boy turned the horses off the Oxford Road close to a half hour ago.”

  She’d been so caught up in her thoughts, Mandy hadn’t noticed the road they were traveling had become a country lane, with tree boughs meeting overhead, glimpses of fields beyond, and potholes that rattled the teeth. Mandy’s heart pounded, she swallowed hard, one hand on the hang-strap, the other clenched in her lap. This was madness. They did not belong here.