Prelude for a Lord (4 page)

“Bay?” Raven’s voice was cautious.

“I’m fine,” Bayard said.

“We’re here.” Ian opened the carriage door.

The front door to the house opened, and Bayard’s sister hurried down the steps to throw herself at him. He staggered backward even as he wrapped his arms around her. His injured shoulder twinged, but he did not loosen his embrace.

“Bay, thank goodness you’re here.” Clare was usually as correct as Ravenhurst, and the fact she embraced him so exuberantly showed her relief at seeing her brother.

“My welcome is distinctly lacking.” Ian gave Clare his most
devastating smile, but it only provoked a frown from her that could have come from the strictest of governesses.

Raven interrupted her glare at his friend with his courteous bow. “Miss Terralton.”

She released Bayard to curtsey to Raven and then, grudgingly, to Ian. “Ravenhurst. Ian.” Clare turned to Bayard and shook his coat lapels, creasing them. “It took you long enough to get here.”

He frowned down at her. “I left within an hour of receiving your letter.”

“Mr. Morrish has been here every afternoon, and Mama has given him permission to escort me to Lady Woolton’s ball next week.” Panic flared around the edges of her dark eyes.

He tucked aside a lock of fine dark hair where it had fallen across her nose. “I will be escorting you to the ball. And for good measure, one of the three of us will be within sight of you always.”

She was so relieved that she kissed his cheek, even with the servants watching from the house’s open doorway. “I knew I could depend on you, Bay.”

“Come inside, come inside,” called a jovial voice. Sir Hermes Morrish, Bayard’s stepfather, waved to them from the front step as he leaned upon a cane. “It’s too cold to stand about, and your mother is anxious to see you.”

“Has Sir Hermes pressured you in any way?” Bayard whispered to Clare as they headed inside.

“No. But he doesn’t prevent his nephew from pressing his suit.

He seems to think it a lark.” Clare sniffed in indignation, then sobered. “Bay, I don’t like how Mr. Morrish looks at me.” She shuddered. “The way we used to look at the Christmas pudding.”

Bayard’s hand tightened over hers. “You will have no need to fear. I have a plan.” He nodded to his stepfather as they approached the front door. “Sir Hermes.”

“Good to see you, m’boy.” Sir Hermes gave a boyish grin that
made him look decades younger. His curly brown-grey hair had been disheveled by the breeze, but he did not seem to notice. He ushered them into the house he had procured for the winter.

It was a fine house, not too far from the Roman Baths where Sir Hermes’s doctor had ordered him every day for his gout. The golden Cotswold stone looked warm even in the fitful sunlight, and the inside was richly furnished with classically inspired furniture boasting more gilt than the ancient Greeks had ever seen. In the drawing room, Bayard’s mother reclined on a chaise lounge, but she sat up as he entered the room with Clare on his arm.

She held round, white arms out to him. “Bayard, how good of you to come.”

He stepped forward to take her hands, entering into the thick cloud of her perfume. He kissed her cheek. “Mama, how are you?”

“Bath is lovely.” Her soft, high voice, usually languid, was alight with excitement. “I have become reacquainted with several old school friends whom I have not seen in ever so long.”

“Your mother is well able to entertain herself while I take the waters.” Sir Hermes beamed at his wife as he sank into a nearby chair. He grimaced only slightly from his gouty foot and rested his cane against the chair arm.

Lady Morrish greeted Raven and Ian like additional sons, and they both kissed her cheek in turn before seating themselves.

“Will you be staying in Bath?” Lady Morrish asked Bayard. “Clare said she has asked you.”

“Yes, and I have even better news.” He nodded to his stepfather. “Sir, this house you have let is very fine, but Ravenhurst has offered us the use of his house and servants here in Bath.”

Lady Morrish’s mouth opened in an O of surprise and delight. She turned to Raven with a rapturous smile. “But what of your mother?”

“Right now she is with my sister at their estate in Devonshire,” Ravenhurst said.

“Ah yes, she wrote to me of your sister’s new baby boy.”

He nodded. “Mother has extended an invitation to you, madam, to stay with her at our home on the Crescent, provided you and your family do not mind rattling around her house alone until she returns to Bath in a few weeks.”

“We should be delighted.” Lady Morrish clapped her hands. “It will be wonderful to see your mother again, and her home is so much larger than this one.”

“But, my dear,” Sir Hermes said, “what of my nephew?”

Clare stiffened.

“What of Mr. Morrish?” Bayard’s tone was harsh.

“Just this morning Sir Hermes suggested we invite him to stay with us,” Lady Morrish said. “His rented rooms are small. But I am afraid we cannot invite him if we will be accepting Lady Ravenhurst’s generous offer.”

“Yes, Mr. Morrish is a stranger to her,” Bayard replied.

Sir Hermes frowned at this change of plans, but then his amiable nature reasserted itself. “Whatever makes you happiest, dear.”

Bayard had to admit that in the three months of his mother’s marriage to Sir Hermes, the fine lines of stress that used to radiate from her doe-brown eyes had disappeared in the light of his stepfather’s more easygoing nature. Bayard’s father’s stern nature had heightened his mother’s nervous temperament, but that nervousness had faded, and he owed his thanks to Sir Hermes’s influence.

At that moment, there was a rap at the front door, and moments later the butler entered the drawing room and announced, “Mr. Morrish.”

Clare shot to her feet, her hands clenched together. Bayard rose also and reached out to fold her hands in his. She gave him a grateful look and relaxed slightly.

Bayard studied Mr. Morrish as Sir Hermes performed introductions. The ginger-haired man looked only slightly like his uncle in his rosy cheeks and curly hair, but where Sir Hermes had an open artifice and bright, dark eyes, Mr. Morrish’s half-lidded gaze shifted slyly from side to side. His smile toward them all, and especially Clare, was wide and ingratiating, but never reached his eyes. The man was not handsome—he had protruding front teeth and a weak chin that made him slightly horselike in appearance—but he carried himself with an easy confidence that made one feel he ought to be handsome.

“Lord Dommick,” Mr. Morrish simpered when they had all reseated themselves. “I had no idea you were coming to Bath. Were you not at Lord Ravenhurst’s estate for the past year?”

Bayard stiffened. While it was no secret he had been at Ravenhurst Castle since last winter, the sneering way Mr. Morrish mentioned it seemed to indicate he knew the truth about why Bayard had been buried in the country for the past twelvemonth. The specter of the ugly rumours threatened to overshadow Bayard, and he tightened his jaw.

“I had always intended to support my sister for her come out,” Bayard replied coldly. “When I heard she would be spending the winter in Bath, I naturally came to escort her about in society.”

“We all came,” Ravenhurst added. His icy demeanor seemed to make Mr. Morrish’s civility falter.

A flash of something ugly passed across Mr. Morrish’s pale face, then it was gone.

“Miss Terralton is like a sister to us,” Ian drawled, although Bayard caught the edge to his words. “It’s as if she has three older brothers.”

A twinkle shone in Clare’s eyes as she glanced at Ian.

To his credit, Mr. Morrish recovered quickly. “Why, that is how I feel about Miss Terralton myself. It is a relief to know she has other such friends as I.”

A wordless sound escaped Clare’s lips as she had difficulty containing her outrage.

“She has a great many friends,” Ravenhurst said. “My mother has offered to Miss Terralton and her family the use of our house here in Bath.”

Mr. Morrish started in surprise, then turned to Lady Morrish. “My dear lady, how fortuitous for you. Surely the Marchioness of Ravenhurst’s home is one of the most elegant in Bath.”

“We shall be very comfortable,” Lady Morrish said.

Mr. Morrish’s smile seemed to indicate he thought nothing more delightful than her removal to the Ravenhursts’ home, but Bayard noticed the man’s hand clenched in his lap.

The rest of Mr. Morrish’s visit passed with gentle gossip that delighted Bayard’s mother. Mr. Morrish had a rapier wit that sometimes bordered on cruel, and his manner of conveying a story seemed to indicate how he despised the characters he spoke of. He appeared to be watching Raven and Ian to see how long they would stay, but Ian brought up at least five or six times how they considered themselves family to Clare and her mother and seemed entrenched in the chair he lounged in. At last, despite the fact Sir Hermes was his uncle, propriety forced Mr. Morrish to depart.

Bayard made a point of walking Mr. Morrish to the door, accompanied by Raven and Ian.

Mr. Morrish had an assurance that was faintly like a challenge as he donned his beaver hat. “I bid you good day, gentlemen. I expect we shall see much of each other this winter.”

Raven stiffened, but Ian said, “Good day,” and all but ushered Mr. Morrish out the front door.

“I should like to darken his lights,” Raven said in a chilly voice.

“What did you think of him?” Bayard asked Ian. Of the four of them, Ian’s ability to assess a person’s character surpassed them
all. Perhaps it had to do with his successful interactions with the fairer sex.

“Completely mercenary,” Ian said. “Although there is something refreshing about a man so transparent about it.”

“
Refreshing
is not the word I would use to describe him.” Raven frowned at Ian.

“He should never be allowed an opportunity to speak privately to Clare, for he seems the sort of man who might press his advantage to force a marriage out of the situation.”

“That much is obvious,” Raven said.

“Pity you can’t forbid him to dance with her,” Ian said. “Although, Bay, if you allow him to guide her outside a ballroom for a moonlit stroll in the garden, I should have to shoot you myself.”

“If Bay did that, I would suspect someone had slipped some tonic into his tea to make him stupid,” Raven said.

“I had forgotten how jovial and complimentary your company was,” Bayard replied.

Before they reentered the drawing room, however, Ian said in a low voice, “Be very careful, not only of your sister, but of your reputation as well. He is the sort of man to exploit any weakness he can ferret out.”

“I shall be careful.” Bayard could make no mistakes for the next year. His sister’s season, and his mother’s sensitive heart, depended upon him.

CHAPTER TWO

A
lethea’s half sister, Lucy Purcell, stumbled as she stepped outside St. Mary’s chapel after church on Sunday morning. “Surely you’re jesting.”

“I have had five exhausting days of attending to my aunt as she spoke to her solicitor and preventing Margaret from sliding down the bannister and terrorizing the shopkeepers as we acquired fabric for some new clothes for her. I assure you, I am not jesting.” Alethea breathed in the cool air after the musty atmosphere of the chapel. She appreciated that the church in the square was small and not as crowded as other more public churches, but the sermons and prayers wove around her ribcage like a corset pulled too tightly. None of those lofty rectors preaching obedience had been abandoned by God to a neglectful father and cruel brother. She had no use for a God like that.

“You, caring for a child?” Lucy peeked around the edge of her bonnet to study Alethea. “You, who have always been unfashionably direct with gentlemen where other women were demure, because
you have no interest in marrying? If you did not look so unwell I should find this quite diverting.”

Alethea glared. Lucy laughed.

Alethea looked for Aunt Ebena, who as usual had not sat with Alethea and her sister during the service. Her aunt’s lined face made her seem to be forever frowning whenever directed at Alethea or Lucy, which made Alethea relieved she didn’t impose her company upon them, but she felt the pain of the slight for Lucy’s sake.

Aunt Ebena was speaking to one of her numerous friends, and would likely remain with them until Lucy left Alethea’s company to return to her employer.

“I take it Margaret is staying?” Lucy asked. As the day was fine, they made their way toward the formal gardens laid out in the centre of the square.

“Aunt Ebena’s solicitor found nothing in Margaret’s father’s will to allow her to refuse this responsibility.” At least Aunt Ebena had kept her disappointment to herself and Alethea, and had not expressed her reluctance to Margaret directly.

“But Margaret is niece to Aunt Ebena’s late husband. She is no relation of yours.”

“She’s a closer relation to that Aunt Nancy woman, who was third cousin to Margaret’s mother.” Alethea ran her hand through a shrub of rosemary along the path, breathing in the pungent scent. “However, I gather that Margaret’s . . . liveliness had been trying.”