Not Quite a Lady (7 page)

“She hates me,” he said, still watching Charlotte. “She sent for me a fortnight ago expressly to tell me so.”

“If it is true,” said Charlotte, “how strange that you should boast of it.”

“I wasn’t boasting,” he said. “I merely wished Mrs. Badgely to understand that the remedy was deemed effective by a skeptic who was prejudiced against me. Do you wish to know
why
Grandmother Hargate hates me?”

Yes, desperately.

But he didn’t want to tell her, Charlotte was sure. What he wanted was to make her guess. After eight Seasons, she had no trouble recognizing an invitation to flirt.

After eight Seasons, her heart ought not to beat so fast, and she ought not to feel a surge of anticipation.

“I should never expect you to discuss so private and painful a matter with a stranger,” she said.

She made herself walk away.

Darius watched her go. A few blond tendrils had come loose from the pins to caress the graceful arch of her neck. He recalled the tiny spot of mud he’d been tempted to groom earlier. Even tonight, in a crowd of people, he’d not had the easiest time keeping his mouth from that neck.

He recalled the agreeable warmth of her breast against his hand.

His hands itched.

He should have kept away. He was not used to resisting temptation, that was the trouble. He’d always avoided situations where he’d have to resist it. He shouldn’t have to resist it, drat her.

What a tiresome girl she was, not to be unhappily married by now!

“I can guess why,” said Mrs. Badgely.

Swallowing an oath, he turned back to her. He could not afford to offend any of his neighbors. Rectors’ wives often wielded considerable power, and this one, he’d perceived, ruled the roost. Moreover, she was Lord Lithby’s cousin.

“I beg your pardon?” he said.

“Though I know it is impossible for your grandmother to hate you, I can easily imagine why she would have harsh words for you,” she said. “If you were my grandson, I should be vastly disappointed in your sense of moral obligation, castor oil or no castor oil. I should certainly not have to tell you that it is your duty as a landowner to see to the welfare of your dependents.”

“I am not, precisely, the landowner at present,” said Darius. “My father is the legal—”

“Pray do not plague me with lawyers’ gobbledygook,” said Mrs. Badgely. “Beechwood is your responsibility.”

“And I mean to bring it back into order as soon as possible,” he said.

“But the house?” she said. “I have heard that you stay at the Unicorn in Altrincham, that only a small staff is at Beechwood House, and those are Londoners. Why have you installed London servants in a country house when local families who have served Beechwood for generations are in want of work? Have you any idea how many of the younger people have been forced to leave their homes and families in order to earn a living? All thanks to the Chancery nonsense.”

She went on about Mr. Carsington’s duty to Beechwood and to the neighborhood. She told him what others had done, how they’d tried to preserve the property and find work and homes for those abruptly cast out.

He tried to explain the economics of the matter: It was the land that supported the house; ergo, the land must come first. But Logic might have lived on the moon, for all she knew of it.

He glanced at Lady Charlotte, who had joined her mother and Colonel Morrell. He was a tall, dark, good-looking fellow of about the same age as Alistair, Lord Hargate’s third son. From Mrs. Steepleton, Darius had learned that Morrell had a property to the south of Lord Lithby’s. Though the colonel’s family, like Lord Lithby’s, had lived here for generations, he had spent most of his life abroad. He had settled here scarcely a year ago and would probably not stay for very long, since he was expected to inherit an earldom from an elderly uncle in Lancashire.

He meant to have Lady Charlotte as his countess, that much was plain. Though the man was not at all obvious about it, he was not too subtle for Darius. After all, mating behavior was Darius’s pet subject.

Morrell wanted Lady Charlotte.

If she noticed, she gave no sign.

Is that what she always did? Was feigning indifference sufficient? It couldn’t be. Males happily pursued females without any encouragement whatsoever, and sometimes despite clear signs of hostility.

She did not appear hostile. She merely wore a placid cow expression Darius knew was false. She was far from placid and definitely not so simple or innocent as she appeared. She was most certainly not so kind and considerate as everyone claimed. Had she not—for the second time in a few hours—abandoned him to one she knew would drive him mad?

“You know how it is when a property goes into Chancery,” Mrs. Badgely was raging on. “One may do nothing, even in charity, for fear of being dragged into the lawsuit. Even Lord Lithby found his hands tied. He was not to ‘interfere,’ as they put it—even at his own expense! You know this is disgraceful, sir. Can you be so heartless as to perpetuate the outrage?”

The word
heartless
made Darius want to gnash his teeth. It was absurd enough hearing it from Father, but Grandmother Hargate used it, too. Hypocrites. They said what they pleased, never minding anyone else’s feelings.

“I have no wish to perpetuate any outrages,” he said. “However, your well-meaning philanthropy fails to take into account certain rules of economics. The land supports the house. The house cannot support the land. Therefore, the logical way to proceed is to begin with the land and any outbuildings crucial to livestock and agriculture.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “Here is Lady Lithby. Let us find out what she thinks.”

Darius wanted to shout that it was irrelevant what a lot of females—to whom logic was as foreign as Sanskrit—thought.

He told himself to calm down. It was irrational to become incensed over a female’s irrationality.

He made himself smile benignly at Lady Lithby. Unlike Mrs. Steepleton and Mrs. Badgely, she would not talk him to death. He had noticed that Lady Lithby listened a good deal more than she talked.

Mrs. Badgely went on about the house.

Lady Lithby listened patiently for a time, then said, “Like other men, Mr. Carsington was not trained to manage a household. No doubt he has no idea where to begin.”

Darius grasped at the lifeline. “Indeed, I haven’t. What do I know of cooks and housekeepers and scullery maids? What do I know of proper furnishings? Should one paint the walls or paper them? What color goes with what? Is this piece of furniture too ornate or unfashionable? I hear women speak of these things and it makes me dizzy. I should rather tackle a hard problem in trigonometry.”

“That is perfectly understandable,” Lady Lithby said. “One cannot expect a man to deal with these matters.”

“But they must be dealt with,” said Mrs. Badgely. “Are we to excuse him on grounds that he is a man?”

“Yes, we must,” said Lady Lithby. “You may put the house out of your mind, Mr. Carsington.”

“Thank you,” he said, resisting the childish temptation to stick out his tongue at Mrs. Badgely.

“I shall be happy to do what needs to be done there,” Lady Lithby said.

Then Darius saw, too late, the pit yawning in front of him.

Ye gods, the Marchioness of Lithby, accustomed to a bottomless purse, renovating his house.

In his mind’s eye, Darius saw ledgers with long columns of expenses, totaling in the thousands. He would have the devil’s own time turning a profit as it was. How could he do it if he refurbished the house?

But only a madman would attempt to speak to women of money. First, the subject was vulgar. Second, ladies of the upper orders had no notion of basic rules of economics. He might as well try to explain Ampère’s
Theory of Electrodynamic Phenomena
to Lord Lithby’s pig.

Third, and most important, his pride would not permit it. He’d be hanged before he’d reveal anything of his financial or time constraints.

“I shouldn’t dream of asking you to add this burden to your present responsibilities,” he said. “You are expecting a large party of guests, I understand, next month.”

“Entertaining guests is nothing,” her ladyship said. “We do it all the time.”

“But to take charge of another household, one that is in complete disorder, without adequate staff—”

“Your agent Quested is completely reliable,” she said. “I shall apply to him for staffing. And you must not fret about how much work needs to be done. Work is what I seek. I recently redecorated Lithby Hall from top to bottom. We were obliged to make some architectural changes as well. While Lithby is happy with the result, he has made me promise not to do it again until the youngest boys are at university. I am at leisure, you see. Too much so, in fact. You would be doing me a favor.”

“Beechwood House is in a ghastly state,” he said, though he had no idea, having not yet darkened its door. “The rats—”

“I shall bring Daisy, my young bulldog,” she said. “She will enjoy catching rats. Charlotte, too.” She signaled to her stepdaughter.

“To catch rats?” Darius said. He watched the stepdaughter approach. She still wore the vacantly agreeable look.

Lady Lithby laughed. “Charlotte is not afraid of rodents. She’s a countrywoman. She will enjoy the challenge, I don’t doubt. Is that not so, my dear?”

“What challenge, Stepmama?” said Lady Charlotte.

“We are going to put Beechwood House to rights.”

Lady Charlotte gave her stepmother one short, shocked look. It was so brief that Darius would have missed it had he blinked. A fraction of a second later, her placid cow mask was back in place.

“Are we, indeed?” she said coolly. “I should have supposed that the last thing in the world Mr. Carsington would want is a pair of women he hardly knows fussing about his house. He has so much work to do, and a great deal on his mind. I should think he would want a refuge. Instead of allowing him an island of calm, we shall turn his house upside down. We shall have bricklayers and carpenters and plasterers and paperhangers and such banging about. And scaffolding everywhere. Not to mention we must pester him about this, that, and the other thing—for after all, it is his house, and ought to be the way
he
likes it.”

She met his gaze then.

For an instant he was lost in a vision of a beautiful someone making a refuge for him, a place of warmth and order, a place of his own where things were as
he
liked them to be.

Then his mind cleared, and in the cool blue eyes he saw the death threat once more.

The message was plain enough:
Agree to this, and I will kill you with my bare hands.

That was amusing.

Logic told him he couldn’t afford to be amused. He must decline the offer, and to hell with Mrs. Badgely. Lady Lithby’s involvement would cost him thousands. He was supposed to turn a profit.

The trouble was, Lady Charlotte clearly wanted nothing to do with his house.

The trouble was, she had left him to Mrs. Steepleton’s ear-numbing chatter, then Mrs. Badgely’s scolding.

“When you put it that way, Lady Charlotte,” he said, “how can I possibly say no?”

Charlotte really was going to have to kill him.

She smiled sweetly, and said, “If Mr. Carsington does not mind our destroying his peace, I shall be happy to help. It should be a most interesting undertaking. I do not believe Lady Margaret made any improvements to the house in all the time she lived there.”

“A fossil of a house,” said Mrs. Badgely. “The same as it was in your great-grandfather’s time. Lithby Hall was a fossil, too, but not so ramshackle.”

“A little old-fashioned,” said Lady Lithby.

“Inconvenient,” said Mrs. Badgely. “The rectory was more modern when I came, and that isn’t saying much.”

“It was a good while before I did anything of importance here,” Lady Lithby said.

This was because she’d spent most of the first three years of her marriage saving Charlotte from herself, and several years after that giving Papa four healthy little boys.

“You are too modest,” Charlotte said. “From the first day you came, you made us more orderly and comfortable.”

All the same, it was naughty of Lizzie to give Charlotte no warning at all before dragging her into her Beechwood House scheme.

“Comfortable is all very well, but the recent work is splendid,” said Mrs. Badgely. “I only wish you could have seen Lithby Hall three years ago, Mr. Carsington, to compare. You would hardly recognize it.”

Being a man, he was unlikely to notice what was wrong and inconvenient, Charlotte thought. Certainly he could have no idea what he was in for once Lizzie took charge. Papa certainly hadn’t realized.

Oh, but it had been great fun.

Perhaps, after all, Lizzie had done her a favor. A large project like this would offer Charlotte a happy distraction, if only temporarily, from the nightmare of the coming house party.

The project would certainly offer Mr. Carsington an unhappy distraction, and that would be fun, too. Meanwhile, she’d love to see his face when he began to understand what would happen when Lizzie took control.

Charlotte donned her most innocent expression. “I made some paintings and drawings before, during, and after the alterations,” she told him. “We have architects’ renderings and artists’ paintings of the old house and property from various times, too. Papa keeps a portfolio containing estate plans and such. He has made a great many changes to the property, as he may have told you. Perhaps you would like to see these documents?”

Mr. Carsington arched an eyebrow.

“They’re in the library,” she said. “I’ll be happy to show them to you, if you are interested.”

He glanced at Mrs. Badgely and quickly away. “I should like nothing better,” he said.

Chapter 4

Yes, Darius would do better to spend his time with the gentlemen.

Yes, he was asking for trouble, following Lady Charlotte out of the drawing room.

But he had to know: What was she up to now?

She led him across the great hall to the library.