Elizabeth Mansfield (3 page)

Roger’s eyes twinkled. “I have no idea. Such a paragon as I am, it
does
seem incredible that a lady could bring herself to reject me.”

Lady Denham did not deign to respond, but merely favored him with a glower and returned to her chair. Roger dropped onto an ottoman near the fire and settled himself comfortably. While he gazed into the flames, his mother studied him closely. Despite his denials, she was well aware of his desirability on the Marriage Mart. Besides the advantages of birth and wealth, which he had in abundance, he had a generous share of those personal qualities that women admire and men envy. She was by no means one of those foolishly fond parents who cannot see their children’s faults. She looked at him now, closely and dispassionately, as a stranger might. There in the firelight, his face looked quite appealing. His eyes were intelligent, humorous, and kind, his mouth generous, his dark hair thick and curly. He had placed one booted foot on the fender of the fireplace and was resting his elbow on the knee of the other leg. Tall and masculine as he was, his body in repose seemed surprisingly graceful. What on earth was there about him that Letty had found to dislike?

“The girl’s behavior is completely bewildering,” she said, voicing her thoughts aloud, “unless she was playing a skittish game with you.”

Roger made a dismissive gesture with his head. “Skittish? Not she.”

“Why not? Many girls believe they ought to refuse a man the first time he offers.”

“Not this girl. There was nothing coy in her refusal. She meant it.”

“How can you be sure?”

Roger turned and faced his mother squarely. “Listen to me, Mama,” he told her firmly, “and believe what I tell you. I’m thirty-one years old. I know the way of the world. I’m neither a coxcomb nor an innocent babe. I know when a young lady is flirting with me and when she is not, when she wants my attentions and when she doesn’t. Miss Glendenning was not flirting. She was not skittish. She was not coy. She obviously doesn’t want to become my wife. So I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere for a daughter-in-law. Sorry, but that’s the end of it.”

His mother stared at him in frustration. Damn the boy, would he
never
marry? Lady Denham winced to remember all the ploys she had used to stimulate Roger’s interest in various eligible females. And she had not been alone in the attempt. She couldn’t
count
all the designing mothers who had thrust their daughters in Roger’s path. Not one of those girls had made the slightest mark on him. When he had at last agreed that the time had come for him to take a wife, he’d admitted to her that there was no girl at all for whom he had the slightest preference. He’d been quite willing to let his mother handle the selection of a suitable bride.

The result of that selection process had been Letty Glendenning. Lady Denham’s closest friend, Millicent Upsham, had long spoken of her niece and had finally brought her to Arneau House for Lady Denham’s inspection. Lady Denham had been delighted with the girl. Not only was she lovely and well-bred, but Lady Denham saw that under her outer softness, Letty had a character of moral strength. In addition, she had recognized, by Letty’s carefully phrased questions and the unmistakable gleam in the girl’s eyes when Roger’s name was mentioned, that Letty was strongly attracted to him. If any girl could entice her son from the joys of bachelorhood, Lady Denham was sure Letty was the one. The plan had seemed so perfect, so simple, so foolproof. What could have gone wrong?

But she would let the matter drop for the nonce. There were too many unanswered questions to form a coherent plan of action. She stood up and wordlessly reached for the pelisse she had thrown over the back of her chair. Roger jumped to his feet and put it over her shoulders. Rubbing her cheek with the back of his hand, he smiled at her comfortingly and said softly, “Don’t feel so put out, my dear. I’m sure you’ll find another candidate for the post before very long.”

“I haven’t given up on
this
one yet,” she answered curtly.

“Now, Mama—!” Roger began in annoyance.

“You must have said or done
something,
” his mother said, ignoring his disapproval. “
Think,
you irritating jackanapes! Are you sure you said or did nothing that could have offended or upset her?”

“What
could
I have said? We barely exchanged a dozen sentences since we were introduced three weeks ago. And those exchanges were the merest commonplaces, I assure you.”

“I see.” She buttoned her pelisse and started for the door. “Well, ring for Trebbs, will you? There’s no point in pursuing this subject any further tonight.”

“There is no point in pursuing the subject at
any
time. Miss Glendenning has refused me, and the subject is closed. And I shall
not
ring for Trebbs. I shall see you out myself.”

Lady Denham took his arm. “Don’t think to deter me from my object by playing the gallant. You may accompany me to the door if you wish, but I will not refrain from pursuing the subject further. Millicent may have learned something from the girl herself. When I hear from her, we shall talk again. Please come to see me before the week is out.”

“Mama—!” Roger exclaimed in disgust.

“No later than Saturday, if you please—or if you don’t please!” his mother said firmly, and went out to her carriage without a further word.

***

The following morning the Glendenning household was as somberly quiet as if a death had occurred in the night. The servants moved about the house on tiptoe. Lady Glendenning, who had taken to her bed immediately after the departure of Aunt Millicent on the previous afternoon, had made no appearance at the breakfast table. The tray that had been brought to her door had been rejected with a moan. The rest
of the family sat at the breakfast table eating listlessly. They spoke to each other only in subdued whispers. Miss Dorrimore, who had emerged from the sickroom well before her symptoms had disappeared, because she felt that her presence was needed in this emergency, stifled her sneezes in the voluminous folds of a very large handkerchief. Ned had dared to guffaw at something in a note a friend had sent round, but he was quickly silenced by the glares of disapproval his sisters shot at him.

Letty, getting up to help herself to a second cup of tea from the pot on the sideboard, looked up from her cup to find every eye upon her. Her sisters, her brother, and everyone in the household had been following her every movement with solemn, lugubrious stares. Since she had been doing her very best to maintain a cheerful countenance and to behave in a normal way, their stares were irritating in the extreme. She heaved a sigh of disgust and faced them squarely. “Will you all stop looking at me in that apprehensive way? You watch me quite as if I were dying of consumption of the lungs!” she burst out.

“It would serve you right if you were,” pouted Clara under her breath.

“
What
did you say, you noddy little brat?” her brother growled. “Take that back at once!”

“I won’t. Why did she have to make all this trouble for us?”

“Trouble?” asked Letty in surprise. “What do you mean, Clara?”

“You’ve refused Lord Denham, haven’t you? Now we shall have no money, and we shall have to give up Hinson and the other servants and Miss Dorrimore, too. And we shan’t be able to buy coal for the fire or new dresses, and we shall all starve!”

Prue looked up from her plate in shocked disgust. “I’d like to slap your silly face!” she said. “Wherever did you hear such nonsense? Besides, who told you that Letty refused Lord Denham?”

“Everyone knows it, even Katie.”

“Katie? Who’s Katie?” Ned demanded.

“Katie in the kitchen. She helps Cook. She knows everything.”

Miss Dorrimore rattled her cup with a nervous hand. “Is this true, Miss Letty?” she asked with a trembling underlip. “Shall I have to go?”

“No, of course not,” Letty assured her. “Really, Clara, you are getting too old for such silliness. Mama has an adequate income, if only we are frugal.”

“Frugal? What’s frugal?” Clara asked.

“Why don’t you ask Katie-in-the-kitchen?” Ned put in with a satiric grimace. “She knows everything.”

Miss Dorrimore, not to be outdone by a kitchen maid, immediately offered instruction. “From the Latin,
frugalis,
meaning economical and prudent in expenditure.”

“Yes, Miss Dorrimore, but what does it
mean
?” Clara persisted.

“It means, love,” Letty explained, “that we can’t spend money on fripperies or ball gowns or parties or such things.”

“Do you mean we won’t be able to go to balls and parties?” Gussie asked, the import of Letty’s action belatedly dawning upon her. “Oh, Letty, perhaps Clara is right. You shouldn’t have done it.”

“Gussie,” Prue frowned, “that’s a dreadful thing to say! Would you want your sister to sacrifice herself on the Altar of Matrimony just so that you can buy ball gowns and go to parties?”

“Prue’s right,” Ned said, nodding agreement. Then, turning to Gussie and Clara, he added vehemently, “Dashed if I ain’t ashamed that you two are my sisters. You ought to know that Letty would do anything for us if she could. This was something she couldn’t do, that’s all.”

“But I don’t understand
why
she couldn’t,” Gussie argued. “Lord Denham is the best catch in the world. And now everyone will be saying that
he
didn’t want Letty, and nobody else will offer for her. And then what will become of us?”

“Really, Gussie, I suppose I could have expected this from Clara, but I never thought to hear
you
talk like such a ninny,” Prue said. “Letty is the prettiest, most sensible girl any man’s likely to find. Do you suppose a man worth his salt would keep from offering for her just because of rumors that the toplofty Earl of Arneau didn’t want her?”

“The Earl of Arneau is
not
toplofty,” Clara informed them smugly. “Katie-in-the-kitchen says he’s very pleasant and kind, besides being handsome and rich as King Midas.”

“Katie-in-the-kitchen seems to be a veritable fount of information,” Letty said drily.

“So it would seem.” Ned laughed. “Perhaps, Miss Nodcock, you could ask your Katie-in-the-kitchen to recommend another lord for Letty to marry.”

“I already did,” Clara responded promptly, “but the only other lord she knows anything about is the Marquis of Atherton. Her cousin works in Lord Atherton’s stables, you see. But Lord Atherton is not in the least eligible.”

“No?” Prue asked with heavy sarcasm. “Why not?”

“Because he is fatter than the Prince and at least seventy-five years old.”

Gussie and Prue giggled, but Ned, keeping his face in rigid control, held up a restraining hand. “That doesn’t seem so bad. He might do for you sister, mightn’t he, Clara? Especially if the marriage would mean gobs of money for the family to spend on balls and such.”

“That’s what I thought,” Clara agreed with perfect seriousness, “but Katie said that he’s not nearly rich enough to make up for his other defects.”

The laughter could no longer be held back, and it burst forth from everyone at the table but Clara and Miss Dorrimore, Clara because she failed to see anything at all funny in what she’d said, and Miss Dorrimore because she felt that the whole conversation was far from proper and had listened to all of it with an expression on her face of profound disapproval.

“Good for Katie-in-the-kitchen,” Prue gasped as soon as she could catch her breath. “I think I’d prefer
her
to be my sister, Clara. She seems to have a great deal more sense than you do.”

“Shall we put it to a vote?” Ned chortled. “All in favor of moving Clara down to the scullery and Katie up to Clara’s room—”

“Now, that’s enough, Neddie,” Letty said calmly. “We’ve had a good laugh, Clara’s frankness has given us a chance to clear the air, and you all have stopped looking at me in that odiously solemn way. So no harm has been done.”

Gussie looked up at her sister guiltily. “I’m sorry for what I said, Letty. Neddie is right—you would have accepted him if you could. Mama always says that you are the best, the most obedient of us all. So if you couldn’t do this, the most important thing she’s ever asked you to do, you must have had a good reason.”

Letty lowered her eyes to her cup. “I
think
I had,” she said hesitantly.

Prue looked at her earnestly. “Aren’t you sure, Letty? Maybe you should tell us why you rejected him. If we all understood—”

Letty shook her head. “I
can’t
! Please don’t ask me.” She put down her cup and made for the door. “Miss Dorrimore, please excuse me. I’d like to go to my room.”

“Of course, my dear,” Miss Dorrimore said, sensing some romantic drama behind the tearful expression in Letty’s eyes.

Gussie, too, seeing a look in her sister’s face she had never seen before, was overcome with a wave of sympathy. She jumped up, ran to her sister, and threw her arms about Letty’s neck. “You’re not upset with me, are you?” she asked in self-reproach. “I’m sorry I sounded so selfish. And Clara is sorry, too, aren’t you, Clara?”

“I suppose so,” the petulant Clara said reluctantly.

Letty forced a smile and looked down at her sister. “Of course I’m not upset with you, Gussie dear. Don’t look so downcast. After all, Prue is the
real
beauty in the family. She’ll have her come-out next year, and before she is on the town a month, she will have found a lord even richer and handsomer than Denham. And she’ll marry him, and we shall all live happily ever after.”

Ned snorted. “
Prue?
You must be blind!”

Gussie agreed. “You’re being silly, Letty. With her freckles and her lack of height, any man who’s at all up to the mark would be unlikely even to
look
at her.”

Prue drew herself up proudly. “Is that so? Well, I’ve been told by several gentlemen already that one need not be tall to be fashionably elegant and that freckles are very comme-il-faut! So there!”

And while the merry discussion over Prue’s charms—or lack of them—ensued, Letty quietly slipped from the room, ran to her bedroom, and barricaded herself behind her locked door for the rest of the morning.