Part 2 (2/2)
”Marriage!” Sarah rose to her feet, her dignity marred by the martial light in her eye. ”I would not marry Lord Cheverell if he were the last man on earth!”
CHAPTER FOUR.
The village of Little Fittleton, with its thatched flint-and-stone cottages, lay somnolent under the noonday sun as Adam drove down its single street. The few people he pa.s.sed smiled as they curtsied or doffed their caps to their landlord. Though rarely at home, he had a good bailiff, and any problems reported to him received his prompt attention. Besides, who could resist the das.h.i.+ng young lord who had run wild about the neighbourhood as a boy and still spoke in the friendliest way to the least of his tenants?
Adam noted with satisfaction that the barley stood tall in the fields, the hairy heads already beginning to bend. A good harvest meant work for all. Most of his wealth came from the sheep on the hills, which offered little employment except at shearing time, but it was a small village and with the Meades to guide him, he made sure no one suffered for lack of work.
He breathed deep of the fresh, clean air and wondered again why he spent so much time in town.
He topped a rise and Cheve House stood before him. The facade of golden Portland stone welcomed him with memories of his youth. He and Jonathan had often ridden the stone lions on either side of the front door, and there to the north was the larch plantation where Sarah had had to be helped down from the top of the tallest tree.
He was grinning as he handed the reins to a groom, and his hat to the butler. His grin lasted until he stepped into the morning room.
”Adam! At last.” His mother came to meet him with a worried face, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. ”Jane threw a priceless Ping vase at Bradfield and he said he will never forgive her. Or do I mean Ling?”
”Ming, Mama.”
Behind her, his sister burst into torrents of tears. ”What shall I do, Adam?” she wailed.
”Choose the Sevres next time,” he advised callously. ”You ought to know by now how your husband feels about Chinese porcelain.”
”There will not be a next time. He has vowed never to speak to me again. I shall kill myself.”
Lady Cheverell rushed to her daughter's side. ”You must not say such things, Jane. Adam will go and have a word with Bradfield and straighten matters out between you. There, there, my love.”
Jane looked up at Adam with hope in her swimming blue eyes.
”No, really, Mama!” he objected. ”I have just arrived and now you want me to dash off to Ches.h.i.+re. Bradfield will chase down here after her as soon as he gets over his pique and we'd pa.s.s on the road, just like last time. I shall wait here until he arrives.”
”You unfeeling brute,” wept Jane. ”I had thought better of you.”
Adam had had enough. ”I'm tired of being wept at!” he exploded. ”Sarah Meade is the only female I know who never enacts me a Cheltenham tragedy.”
”You always did like Sarah better than the rest of us,” sniffed his sister sulkily.
Lady Cheverell was stunned by his outburst. ”Sarah Meade is an exceptional person,” she offered in a timid voice.
Her tone reminded him of the way she used to speak to his father when the late viscount was indulging in one of his frequent fits of ill humour. Overcome with remorse, he picked her up and hugged her till she squeaked. She was a tiny woman, always overshadowed by her tall offspring, and now she felt more fragile than ever in his arms.
”I beg your pardon, Mama.” He set her down on a brocaded sofa and sat beside her. She reached up to brush back his vagrant lock of hair. ”Of course I shall talk to Bradfield, and even go after him if he does not turn up in a couple of days. By the way, Jane, why did you throw the wretched thing in the first place?” ”He insists on calling our firstborn Cyril, after his father, and I cannot abide the name. I am going upstairs to rest.” With an air of offended dignity, Lady Bradfield flounced out of the room.
”More hair than wit,” snorted her brother. ”Oh, Lord, is she breeding at last? You should have told me. I never would have shouted at her like that. I shall have to apologize.” ”It was most unlike you, dear. You have always been amazingly patient with your sisters, and I know they can be trying at times. It is quite a relief to me to have married them all off successfully at last.” ”Is successfully the correct word?” ”Jane is really very fond of Bradfield. I daresay she will settle down when she has children to care for.
She always did grow crotchety when she was bored. But what has thrown you in the hips, Adam?” ”Perhaps I am bored, too,” he responded lightly. A gleam entered his mother's eye. ”Then I shall recommend the same remedy,” she said with unwonted firmness. ”It is time you found yourself a bride and set up your nursery.” ”Dash it, Mama, I am only twenty-seven, much too young to be leg-shackled. I have years ahead of me before I need worry about producing an heir.” ”Yes, dear, but it is you I am concerned about, not your hypercritical heir.” ”Hypothetical,” he murmured. ”I should so like to see you settled, with a family of your own. Perhaps you would spend more time here at Cheve if you had a wife and children,” her ladys.h.i.+p said wistfully. ”I am the most selfish beast in nature! Of course, you must be lonely here with all the girls gone.” Once again Adam was filled with remorse. ”I had not realized it, but now I know, I shall make a point of coming down more often.” ”I did not mean to complain, Adam. Sarah visits me often, and dear Jonathan too, but you know how few close neighbours we have.” ”Yes, it is an isolated spot.” She pressed her advantage. ”And if I had a daughter-in-law living with me, then I should never be lonely, however much time you spent in London.” ”Lord, Mama, that is not the kind of marriage I want! I do not mean to leave my wife languis.h.i.+ng in the country while I disport myself in town, as my father did.” Lady Cheverell pounced. ”Then you will look about you for a bride? It is the dearest wish of my heart.” ”It seems I have talked myself into a corner.” He smiled down at her ruefully. ”I shall look about me.” ”Have you no one in mind?”
”No, but it should not prove too onerous a task. Every Season brings a new crop of delightful young ladies.”
”The next Season is nine months away!”
”I am quite content to wait. Surely you do not expect me to make the rounds of all the great houses of Britain in search of love in the meantime?”
”I thought we might have a house party. Your sisters are coming; and they will each be bringing an eligible young lady. Except poor Jane, of course.”
”You are a complete hand, Mama! You have been planning this for weeks, at least. Is Jane's trouble only a ruse to bring me here?”
”Certainly not! I cannot deny that I have been making plans, but I did not set a date. Only since you are here already, would this not be a good moment? The girls are all prepared to be here within the week.”
”If you insist.” Adam sighed in resignation. ”I cannot promise to marry any of my sisters' choices, though. I dread to think what sort of young ladies they will consider suitable matches for me.”
”Of course you must not marry where you do not feel a decided attachment.”
These words brought to Adam's mind three females to whom he had been attached, and who awaited his a.s.sistance in London. ”I shall have to go back to town for a few days,” he warned.
”Will you be able to return by a week tomorrow?”
”That depends on your son-in-law, since I have offered to speak to him when he arrives. Jane has been here for three days? I look to see Bradfield appear today, or tomorrow at the latest. Give me ten days and I engage to be here to greet your guests. You will not object if I bring a couple of friends back from London to support me through this ordeal?”
”Pray do not think of it as an ordeal, Adam, or I shall cancel the whole thing.”
He brightened, then his mother's anxious face stiffened his resolve. ”I daresay it will be an enjoyable party, and at least it will be pleasant to see Mary and Eliza and Louise. I must go and change out of my dirt now, before I can join you for luncheon. I am devilish sharp-set so I shall not keep you waiting.”
As he made his way up the wide, curving stairway, he was struck by a horrid thought. The earliest he could reach London, if he left at first light tomorrow, was late tomorrow evening. Janet, Marguerite and Peggy would have heard nothing from him for three days. He could not imagine what had possessed him to leave them without definite word of his return, and it seemed all too likely that they might decide to follow him into Wilts.h.i.+re. The possibility of their coming face-to-face with her ladys.h.i.+p was too dreadful to contemplate.
”Gossett!” he bellowed, pausing halfway up the stairs.
A footman who was crossing the hall looked at him in astonishment and broke into a run. A few moments later the butler appeared, hurriedly removing his baize ap.r.o.n.
”Your lords.h.i.+p called?” he enquired, as imperturbable as his brother in London.
”Yes. I must speak to you privately at once, and I need to change. Come up to my chamber with me.”
”At once, my lord.” Gossett handed his ap.r.o.n to the footman who had fetched him. ”Hot water for his lords.h.i.+p immediately,” he ordered, then trod in stately fas.h.i.+on up the stairs, no twitch of an eyebrow revealing the least curiosity about this unusual request.
Adam's suite was always kept in a state of readiness since his rare visits were frequently unannounced. The high-ceilinged, airy bedchamber with its huge, Jacobean four-poster, had a lady's boudoir, presently unused, opening off one side, and a gentleman's dressing room off the other. To this latter the viscount now repaired.
He shrugged out of his coat while Gossett, used to his arrival without Wrigley, removed from his wardrobe the garments appropriate to an afternoon in the country.
”Your lords.h.i.+p wished to say?” the butler prompted.
”I am expecting-well, half-expecting-some visitors.” Adam wondered how much his London Gossett had revealed to this country Gossett about their master's life of dissipation in town. He pulled off his cravat and unb.u.t.toned his s.h.i.+rt.
”Indeed, my lord?”
A momentary reprieve appeared in the form of a footman bearing a jug of hot water. He was pressed into service to remove his lords.h.i.+p's boots, a task far beneath the dignity of a butler. By the time he left with an armful of soiled clothing and the boots to be polished, Adam had gathered his thoughts.
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