Nearly a Lady (5 page)

She looked away. “We should go in. Lilly must be finished by now.”

“Have we cried pax, then?” he asked.

She considered it. He wasn’t lying, and he wasn’t mad. In fact, he was rather likable. There was still the issue of his believing a house could be run on five pounds a year. But then, sometimes those in possession of the greatest fortunes had the least understanding of their value. Lord Gideon was likely merely eccentric, and as long as that eccentricity didn’t extend to making wild promises he wouldn’t keep, she saw no reason to spend the next few days being at odds with him.

She nodded, resolute. “Pax.”

 

B
reakfast at the Murdoch House generally consisted of one of three ingredients: eggs, fish, or porridge. Winnefred caught and cleaned the fish. Lilly collected and cooked the eggs. Porridge, despised by both of them, was used only under the most dire of circumstances and prepared by whomever was hungry enough to go to the bother of making it.

Meals in general were eaten in the kitchen with a single fork and tin bowl each. So it was with some surprise that Winnefred discovered the small dining room table set with the few pieces of chipped china they’d discovered in the attic, and a small hill of eggs, bread, and cheese. It was several days’ worth of food, and the sheer gluttony of it had Winnefred gaping.

“What in the—?”

“Do have a seat, my lord.
Winnefred
.” Lilly sent a look that somehow managed to both plead with Winnefred to say nothing and promise the most severe of consequences should Winnefred refuse.

Familiar enough with pride—and with Lilly’s rare temper—Winnefred moved around the table to sit, only to have Lilly stop her with a quick grasp of her elbow and a low, furious whisper.

“What happened to your gown?”

Winnefred shook her head. “He isn’t angry. I’ll explain later.”

Lilly looked as if she wanted to argue but settled for a scowl before letting go of Winnefred’s arm and taking her own seat.

Gideon sat at the head of the table and looked over his steaming plate. “It looks and smells wonderful, Miss Ilestone.”

Winnefred smiled knowingly and waited for him to take his first bite. Gideon scooped up a forkful of eggs and tasted. His eyes widened in surprise, then closed in overt pleasure.

“Sweet Mary,” he murmured around the mouthful. He chewed, swallowed, and took another, larger forkful.

Lilly smiled and blushed. “I am delighted it’s to your liking, my lord.”

Gideon bobbed his head but waited until his mouth was empty before speaking again. “Extraordinary. Absolutely extraordinary. What did you put in here?”

“A little bit of this and that—cream, dill, and so on.”

“Are all your meals this well prepared?”

“They are when Lilly cooks,” Winnefred answered.

“Winnefred makes a very fine trout as well, my lord.”

“Gideon, please,” he invited. “I suppose this is why you’ve no one else to cook for you, then. What would be the point, really?”

“I’m afraid a cook just wasn’t possible with the funds Lord . . . I suppose I should say
Lady
Engsly sent us,” Lilly replied.

Gideon stopped eating. “How is it two intelligent, practical women are unable to keep a small house and . . .” He trailed off as if just considering something. “How many pounds, exactly, did Lady Engsly send you?”

“Five,” Winnefred answered around a mouthful of eggs. “I thought you knew that.”

“Five,” he repeated dully. He set his fork down, dragged a hand down his face, and swore under his breath. “As in, five-decimal-point-zero?”

“Yes, of course,” Lilly answered with a small laugh.

He swore quietly again. “I beg your pardon. I’d rather hoped you were speaking in hundreds.”

“Hundreds?” Winnefred would have laughed herself, but the cold shock on Gideon’s face had a trickle of nerves dancing along her skin. “Lady Engsly didn’t steal half, did she?”

“No.” He blew out a hard breath. “Your allowance was set at eighty pounds annum.”

There was a simultaneous gasp of breath and clatter of silverware. Lilly stared, openmouthed and wide-eyed. Winnefred moved her mouth to speak but found she was unable to form sound.

“There’s the bonus, as well,” Gideon reminded them. He scowled at his plate. “And given the extent of Lady Engsly’s crime against you, whatever else you might like.”

Winnefred’s mind stayed eerily blank except for a repetitive echoing of Gideon’s voice saying, “Eighty pounds annum. Eighty pounds annum. Eighty pounds . . .”

“I want a London season for Winnefred.”

That sudden, decisive, and wholly unexpected statement from Lilly cut through Winnefred’s mind like a sharp knife.

Lilly ignored her in favor of addressing Gideon. “You said anything within reason, and I feel a season for a young woman of good birth is not beyond the realm of reasonable.”

Obviously expecting an argument from him, Lilly straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin defiantly. She needn’t have bothered.

“A season it is.” Still scowling, Gideon picked up his fork and stabbed at his eggs. “Five pounds. It’s a wonder the two of you survived.”

Winnefred shook her head in bewilderment. “This is absurd. What the devil would I do with a London season?”

“Find a husband, I imagine,” was Gideon’s reply.

It only served to mystify her further. “What the devil would I do with a
husband
?”

“Obtain long-term financial stability,” Lilly told her. “Something more reliable than sheep that can fall ill or crops that can fail.”

“A husband can fall ill,” she argued. “And I’d wager they fail their spouses regularly. Also, we haven’t any sheep
or
crops.”

“But we will, if you have your way.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that?” Lilly opened her mouth, ready, it seemed, to explain exactly what was wrong with that, and Winnefred tried another angle. “I’m nearly six-and-twenty. I’m too old.”

“For a traditional debut, yes, but not a simple season.” Lilly leaned forward, excited. “Think of it, Winnefred. The opera, the shops, the balls and soirees, rides in Hyde Park and trips to Bond Street. You could have that life—” She cut herself off, obviously remembering with whom she was speaking. “You could have a husband with enough funds to keep you knee-deep in sheep and soil for the rest of your life.”

Winnefred considered her friend. It was impossible to miss the way Lilly’s eyes lit up as she spoke of visiting London. “You should have the season,” she decided. “You’d enjoy it far more, and make better use of it as well.”

Gideon responded before Lilly could. “A fine idea.”

“My lord, the expense, the trouble . . .” Lilly protested.

“Isn’t something you need concern yourself with,” he finished for her. “The Engsly estate can well afford it, and I’ve a great-aunt who would like nothing more than to introduce two lovely young ladies into society.”

“She’ll need to content herself with just one,” Winnefred said, adamant she would not, absolutely
not
, be going to London to indulge in a silly game of husband hunting.

Lilly pressed her lips into a thin line. “I’ll not go without you.”

“Lilly, that’s unfair.”

“Fair or not, you know very well I won’t leave you here alone.”

“I . . .” She looked to Gideon for help, but the man had gone back to glaring at his eggs and mumbling about the five pounds. She gave a brief thought to picking up her fork and winging it at his head but managed to restrain herself. “I’ll be fine, Lilly, honestly. I’ll—”

“Come to London with me, or the both of us stay here.”

Winnefred balled the napkin in her lap, met her friend’s determined stare, and wondered how she could possibly say no. Lilly had always wanted more than what could be had at Murdoch House or purchased with their very limited funds in the nearby village of Enscrum. She had never complained, never shied from the hardest chores. She’d gone hungry with a smile, worn cast-off clothing without a hint of protest . . . and accepted, with open arms, a child that no one else would have.

But sometimes, at night, when they were too cold, or too hungry, or too frightened to sleep, she would speak in dreamy tones of her brief time in London—of the opera and soirees and those trips to Bond Street.

Winnefred tossed the napkin on the table, swore—fluently enough, it seemed, to pull Gideon’s attention away from his eggs—and stood. “Fine. We’ll go.”

“Thank you. Freddie—”

“I’ve a fence to mend.”

 

G
ideon watched Winnefred stalk from the room. Considerable temper on the woman, he mused. Not the nasty and potentially violent sort his stepmother possessed, but formidable all the same. He found it, and the woman, more appealing than was comfortable.

He turned to Lilly and saw that she was pale, tight-lipped, and red-eyed.

“I suppose you think me very unkind,” she said softly.

“On the contrary, I think you very clever and uncommonly selfless.” He had looked up from his plate long enough to see the painful longing in her eyes when she’d spoken of London. She had risked what she wanted most for what she thought was best for her friend. “You’re doing what’s best for Winnefred.”

“What’s better, at any rate.” Lilly picked up her fork and poked at the food left on her plate. “She’s content here, and she’ll never look for more than that unless she is bullied into it. I want her to have a chance at real happiness.”

“And she’ll find it in a London season?”

She surprised him by laughing. “Oh, heavens, no. She’ll be miserable, like as not. But she needs the comparison, doesn’t she? And there is always the chance she’ll fall madly in love with a gentleman of means.” She sighed wistfully. “Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

As Winnefred didn’t strike him as the romantic sort, he decided against comment. “Forgive my bluntness, but do you think she’s adequately . . . prepared for polite society?”

“She is capable of basic civility,” Lilly assured him. “She simply chooses to ignore it. Breaking her of that and providing the rest of her grooming can be accomplished within a few weeks. We’ll be late for the season, but it can’t be helped.”

Gideon wondered if a few weeks would be several years too short a time to polish the girl up, but he thought it best not to voice that concern. “We should leave for London as soon as possible if you wish to employ a decent modiste, find a dancing master, and so forth. How long will it take to find someone to care for your livestock, do you suppose, two, three days?”

“Days?” Lilly shook her head. “Oh, no. We couldn’t possibly bring Winnefred to London in three days. Her habits are more ingrained than that. I’ll need three weeks, at the very least.”

He set his fork down.

“That’s not possible.” The words came out quickly and, admittedly, a bit rudely. But
three weeks
? He’d come to Scotland with the intention of finding Miss Blythe, delivering her lost allowance, and making certain she was comfortably settled. In all, he’d scheduled no more than two days in her company. He was flexible man, and willing to add a day or two under the circumstances, but three weeks under his sole care was out of the question. That kind of responsibility was exactly the sort he’d made a habit of avoiding since the war.

“I’m certain you can manage in London well enough,” he added in what he hoped was a bolstering tone. “My aunt will—”

“Lord Gideon,” Lilly interrupted patiently, “Winnefred came here a child of thirteen raised by a series of indifferent governesses hired by a careless father. That was twelve years ago and one of her most recent brushes with polite company.”

“The village must have something to offer in the way of social gatherings.”

“The vicar and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Howard, hold reign over Enscrum’s small claim to society. We have never been welcomed to join their select group of friends.”

“Why not? Surely, when the two of you first arrived—”

“Because in our first week here, when Mrs. Howard came to visit, Winnefred informed her that the vicar could not expect to see her sitting on the wooden pews come Sunday.”

“Did she say why?”

“As I believe she explained it—she had read the Bible from cover to cover, and nowhere between those covers was there a passage indicating that admittance to heaven was dependent upon a person having spent every Sunday of her life with a sore arse.”

He struggled with a reluctant smile. “In Winnefred’s defense, there’s not.”

Lilly gave him a bland look. “She needs the time to properly train.”

He tapped his finger against the table. “Why is it you ladies always make the season sound like a competitive sporting event?”

“For an unmarried woman, that’s exactly what it is.” She lifted her eyebrows in an expectant manner. “Will you give us the three weeks?”

As he’d just given his word they could have whatever they liked, he couldn’t very well say no now. Not without relinquishing all claims to honor and the right to call himself a gentleman.

He had, in essence, been neatly boxed in, and suddenly Winnefred’s response to her friend’s demands didn’t seem quite so outrageous. In fact, he found the notion of swearing loudly rather appealing just now.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t an excuse for such a grievous breach of manners.

He nodded in acceptance, made his excuses, and left to comfort himself with a long walk.