A Gamble on Love (13 page)

“
Mr. Charles Saunders, a
solicitor
, is going to find an estate
manager for Pevensey Park? In
London
?”

“
Relia,” Gussie sighed, “Mr. Saunders
is Mr. Lanning’s personal friend as well as his solicitor. A young
man of good family, I promise you, who is not at all ignorant about
the requirements for a steward. Indeed, I found him most pleasant
and competent.”

“
Pevensey Park is mine. I will find my
own steward!”

“
No, Aurelia, it is not. And you will
not,” declared Miss Aldershot in her governess voice. “Even though
you do not seem to wish to lie in the bed which you have made, you
have no choice. You threw out your net, and you caught a larger and
more wilful fish than you intended. You must learn to live with
it.”

“
I . . . I can’t,” Relia murmured,
suddenly sounding more like the five-year-old Miss Aldershot had
first known than a married lady of one and twenty.

“
You must. Recall, if you will, that
your alternate choice was The Terrible Twyford—”

“
I was going to accept
Harry!”

“
Piffle! You would have eaten the poor
boy alive in a sennight. Or died of boredom. That,” Gussie added
with certainty, “will never happen with Mr. Lanning.”

“
Et tu
,
Gussie?”

“
My dear, I have lived in this house
for sixteen years. I have seen you grow from a child into a
beautiful young lady. And now it is my dearest hope to see you grow
into a wife and mother, with a new generation for me to mold into
proper ladies and gentlemen.”

Red stained Relia’s face; the stubborn set of
her Trevor chin began to wobble. Snatching what dignity she could,
she attacked her long-time friend and companion. “He has won you
over by agreeing you should stay on here.”

“
Oh, my dear,” Miss Aldershot cried,
“do you wish me to leave?”

Relia shoved back her chair and raced to
companion’s side, throwing her arms around her, chair and all. “No,
no, no, Gussie. You are all I have left in the world!”

Miss Aldershot squeezed her hand. “Thank you,
my dear. But I believe you have acquired far more than you are
willing to acknowledge. Only time will tell, of course, but you
must try very hard to be fair. Your Cit is a good man, I think. And
proud as Lucifer himself. He will not take what you do not
offer.”

Ah—if Gussie only
knew
.

Relia pressed a kiss to Miss Aldershot’s
cheek. Straightening, she clasped her hands in front of her and
straightened her shoulders, as if preparing for a recitation in the
schoolroom. “You are, as ever, wiser than I,” she stated with
unaccustomed humility. “I promise I will make an effort to
accommodate myself to this situation, which everyone quite rightly
reminds me I have created for myself.” Just for an instant, Relia’s
lips quivered, before she got them firmly under control. “But I
must tell you it will not be easy.”

“
I believe marriage is never easy, my
dear,” Gussie pronounced with all the wisdom of someone who has
never known the felicity of that state.

“
If you will excuse me,” Relia said, “I
will see if my things have been returned to my room.” For a moment
her head hung low, as she trailed her fingers across the rich
cherrywood of the dining table. “If my room is ready, I may stay
upstairs. I—I have a good deal of thinking to do.”

“
Goodnight then, my dear,” said Miss
Aldershot, looking grave. “I promise you all will look better in
the morning.”

Platitudes, Relia grumbled as she mounted the
stairs. Platitudes would not be a speck of use against Thomas
Lanning. What she desperately needed was a detailed understanding
of the relationship between a husband and wife. In mind as well as
body.

She supposed Gussie would say that was as
good as asking for the moon. Yet Thomas Lanning was ten years her
senior, an experienced man of the world, while she was a country
girl who had never even had a Season. In birth, she towered above
her hired Cit husband. In experience, he was the mountain, she the
molehill. A lowering thought. Sadly lowering.

Her room was quiet, magically
transformed back to the cozy refuge she had known all her life. A
fire crackled in the white marble fireplace, the heavy turquoise
brocade draperies were drawn across the windows. A wall sconce of
three candles twinkled above her dainty dressing table. With
purposeful steps Relia crossed to one of the rear windows of the
corner room, pulled aside the draperies, and looked out. A harvest
moon—still showing a pale orange—was rising, bathing the terraces
and sloping lawn in ghostly light. In the
distance—
ah!
—a red light
flickered and grew, mounting swiftly into a beacon that could be
seen for miles. She had completely forgotten it was Guy Fawke’s
Day. Allowing the drapery to close behind her, Relia sat on the
window seat and watched the flames soar into the night sky on the
rocky hillside above her sleeping sheep. Surely, there had to be
some enormous irony in her tenants celebrating while
she—

While she what? Felt sorry for herself? Felt
her heart would break because her Cit husband did not want her.
Because the Cit husband she had used to save herself and Pevensey
Park did not bow down and kiss her feet?

Suddenly, all Relia’s cares descended on her
at once. Her carefully masked features dissolved into anguish.
Fighting her way back through the draperies, she threw herself,
face down, on her bed and wept. Great heart-rending sobs no one
heard as Miss Aldershot knew when to leave her charge alone and
Tilly, never suspecting her mistress might go to her room hours
earlier than usual, was seated at the broad deal table in the
kitchen, happily finishing her dinner and flirting with the second
footman.

~ * ~

Mr. Charles Saunders stepped into his
employer’s office without knocking, folded his arms across his
chest and leaned negligently against the jamb, as if he hadn’t a
care in the world. “I’ve been sent to remind you that you are
engaged for dinner this evening at the Gresham’s.”

“
I sent my regrets,” Thomas declared
with no more than a fleeting glance at his long-time friend. “And
pray tell me, Charles, at what historic moment did you exchange
places with my secretary?”

“
Since you frightened young Rollins so
badly he’s afraid to come near you. And,” Mr. Saunders added with
all the insouciance at his command, “I cancelled your rejection.
You are expected at the Gresham’s this evening.”

Thomas’s head jerked up. “The devil you
did!”

“
You need to get out and about, Thomas.
You have the entire staff, not to mention some highly important
colleagues, quaking in their boots. I swear you have not uttered a
civil word to anyone since you came back. Including me,” Mr.
Saunders added under his breath.

“
As you very well know, the Greshams
are close to the Ebersleys—”

“
And you are
hiding
?” Charles chortled, straightening off the
door jamb. “The great Thomas Lanning hiding? From a
woman
?”

Thomas scowled. “A man does not willingly
offer himself up for a scold. And, if you must have the wood with
no bark on it, I have had enough female company to last me for some
time to come.”

Charles, suddenly sober, crossed the room and
slumped into one of the chairs in front of his friend’s broad
mahogany desk. “Have I done you a grave disservice, Thomas? Should
I have told Sir Gilbert to peddle his wares elsewhere? God knows
you’re just about the most dour new husband I have seen—and,
believe me, I’ve known a good number of the newly shackled. Well?
Do you wish me in Hades? And your bride along with me? Thomas?”
Charles prodded when his friend remained silent, “are you so
unhappy that your view of all women is soured? I had thought an
evening with Eleanor Ebersley was certain to sweeten your
temper.”

“
You are right about one thing,” Thomas
said at last. “I am hiding. I had hoped to avoid Mrs. Ebersley.
When vexed, she has a tongue that cuts sharper than the scorn in my
dear bride’s eyes. Oh, I admit an occasional rendezvous with the
delicious Eleanor can be . . . ah—gratifying, Charles, but, lately,
she’s begun to look at old Ebersley as if she’s counting the days
’til he sticks his spoon in the wall.” To which comment Mr.
Saunders had the good grace to keep his tongue between his
teeth.

Thomas shuffled the papers on his desk. “And,
Charles? I do not regret your conversation with Sir Gilbert. Just
because my bride is a bit more intractable than I had presumed does
not mean that the arrangement is not very much to my benefit. All
will proceed as we have planned.”

Mr. Saunders, suddenly animated, leaned
forward in his chair, eyes aglow. “I say, Thomas, you’re a great
gun! You’re really going to do it then?”

“
I am.”

“
Does Mrs. Lanning know?”

Thomas looked over his friend’s head,
seemingly intent on a nautical scene by Turner. “Has that
man-milliner and his fabrics left for Pevensey Park?”

“
The upholsterer? Yesterday,” Charles
replied, suppressing a smile. “Ah—Thomas?”

“
I suppose your family will expect you
for Christmas,” Mr. Lanning inquired, with seeming
irrelevancy.

“
Indeed they will.”

“
Then it would seem I will have to
beard the young lioness in her den without your support. How
fatiguing,” Thomas drawled.

“
You’re not going to tell her
until
Christmas
?” Charles
burst out, much shocked.

“
Perhaps not until the new year,”
Thomas murmured blandly. “Good-day, Charles. And may I remind you
that you are not the voice of my conscience. I actually have one of
my own.”

Charles Saunders was still shaking his blond
head when he closed the door behind him. Softly, and with great
care.

“
Mrs. Stanton and Miss Stanton have
called, ma’am,” Biddeford declared. “Will you receive them here or
in the drawing room?”

The Pevensey ladies were enjoying a sunny but
chill morning in the cozy intimacy of the small morning parlor that
overlooked the terraced gardens. Decorated in shades of rose and
cream, it was a room both attractive and inviting. “Show them in
here, Biddeford,” Relia said. “The drawing room is undoubtedly
quite arctic.”

“
My dear!” declared the squire’s wife
in hearty accents, rushing across the room to draw Aurelia into a
firm embrace. “We have not visited until now as we thought to allow
you the privacy due newlyweds, but what do I hear but that Mr.
Lanning has gone off and left you. Abandoned you for his life in
the city, they say. Can it be true, child? I have known you from
the cradle and can scarce believe it. Has the man no sense at
all?”

For all that the Squire Stanton remained firm
in his conviction that his son had suffered a heartfelt
disappointment when rejected by Miss Trevor, his good wife Margaret
was under no such illusion. A stout woman with a generous nature,
she could only thank the good Lord her son had been spared a
leg-shackle to Aurelia Trevor. It would take a man stronger than
her precious Harry to manage her, indeed it would. But Mrs. Stanton
was exceedingly fond of the girl and could not like to see her
deserted three days after her wedding. It was unnatural, that’s
what it was.

Since the new Mrs. Lanning seemed momentarily
speechless, Gussie directed the visitors to their seats and ordered
Biddeford to bring refreshments. “We are delighted to see you,”
Miss Aldershot said to the Stanton ladies. “I fear it has been
rather quiet here the past sennight.”

Relia now had herself well in hand. “When we
returned from Tunbridge Wells, Mr. Saunders had had word that Mr.
Lanning was needed in London immediately. He is, as we all know,
engaged in business there. He is not free to dash about or take his
leisure as are—ah—most gentlemen.” How very strange, but her tongue
had refused to exclude her husband from the August realm of being a
gentleman.

“
But married only three days, my dear!”
Margaret Stanton tutted. “When does he expect to
return?”

Miss Chloe Stanton, blushing for her mama,
swiftly interjected a question of her own. “I found Mr. Charles
Saunders a most attractive man. Did you not think so, Relia?”

“
Yes, indeed.” Relia smiled, grateful
for the interruption, as she had not the slightest idea when Mr.
Lanning might return. “A true gentleman, I believe. I am told he is
the younger son of a fine country family in Somerset.”

But the squire’s wife was not so easily
put off. “And
I
am told he
sacked Mr. Tubbs before he left. After all his years of service.
Shocking, quite shocking.”

“
Mr. Tubbs,” said Relia with some
asperity, “forgot that I, not Lord Hubert, was the owner of
Pevensey Park. I assure you, I was glad enough to have Mr. Lanning
and Mr. Saunders to deal with him.”

To cover her mama’s most unladylike snort of
disapproval, Miss Stanton asserted, “I never liked that man. Much
too uppity. There were times he gave me a look that made me think
he was trying to see straight through—beg pardon, mama, but truly,
Mr. Tubbs was not a nice man.”