Chapter Three
The footman set a crystal dish before Mrs. Elizabeth Hartley, along with an extra plate, then beat a hasty retreat, rounding the table with his tray to deposit a matching dessert before Marcus, minus the plate.
“Syllabub?” Marcus frowned at the dainty dish before him, quite like a champagne coupe but taller, and filled with the familiar soft and bland peaks of white. “I thought cook was making floating islands?”
“Tch,” his mother scolded him from across the table, her dessert spoon already in hand. “It’s nearly the same thing, all cream and eggs.”
Marcus sat back with a sigh, rubbing one temple with two forefingers. It’d been a hot, miserable day. Miserable news from Towle. Then he’d endured miserable suet dumplings on a miserable stew to placate his mother, whose tastes were as common as her origins. His cook was awful at executing most anything, that was true, but he happened to excel at one thing: desserts. And Marcus always fancied dessert.
“If they’re nearly the same thing, then I wonder why you requested a change of course?”
Mrs. Hartley began to speak, then thought better of it, and popped a spoonful of the light, unexciting dessert into her mouth instead. Her small spaniel, Walter, chose this moment to sit up in his chair alongside her, tail swishing in a flurry. He yipped.
“Of course, darling,” his mother murmured, ladling two heaping spoonfuls of syllabub onto the small plate.
Walter, unable to contain his excitement, began circling in the dining chair, huffing and sneezing until Mrs. Hartley shifted the plate in front of him. The dog attacked it.
For a moment Marcus considered pressing the issue, begging his mother to explain the differences in dessert preparations, knowing full well she hadn’t the foggiest idea of what a whisk was, let alone how to properly use it. But his sweet tooth prevailed, so he instead picked up his spoon and shoveled a large heap of the simple dessert into his mouth. It reminded him of being a lad in short pants, but other than that it wasn’t half bad. Not that he would admit it. They consumed their syllabub without conversation, the only sound the incidental clinking of spoons against crystal.
Besides Walter lapping at his portion, of course. The dog licked with such gusto that the plate repeatedly rose from the table only to thud back down again.
When Mrs. Hartley finished, the footman collected her dish, then Marcus’s. He didn’t bother retrieving Walter’s plate, having been bitten once before.
Before they could stand from the table and retire to the other room to begin their evening rituals—newspaper reading and scowling for him, needlework and mindless prattle for her—she cleared her throat, looking a bit flustered.
“What is it, Mama? Are you ailing?” Marcus gave an affectionate half-chuckle, for his mother, like all mothers, was perpetually suffering from one thing or another.
When she didn’t immediately chide him, he furrowed his brow. She seemed apprehensive, or worse—her mouth was tight, her eyes wide. Marcus sat up. He couldn’t ever recall seeing her this serious.
Finally she spoke. “I’ve heard something concerning from Mrs. Venables, and I beg you, tell me it is false!”
Walter had both of his front paws on the table now, and was craning his neck to chase the plate, even though he’d already licked it clean. Without looking, Mrs. Hartley picked up the dog and settled it into her lap. It was not enough to break Walter’s focus, though, and he kept straining against the bonds of her embrace, grunting as he attempted to return to his empty plate. Marcus felt an unlikely kinship with the odd little creature. They were both desperate for something they could never have, struggling against the constraints of society to reach it.
“Marcus!” His mother’s sharp tone brought his attention away from her pet and back to her.
“How can I respond to any charges against me while I sit over here in ignorance? Enlighten me, if you would.”
“It is said you’ve… oh dear me, it’s truly wicked! Marcus—you would never. Would you?”
Marcus raised his brow expectantly.
She sighed, and then in a quieter voice, explained. “There are those who accuse you of fathering not just one, but many children with… with…” She grimaced, the mere thought of the words almost too much for her to bear. But she carried on, the gray curls that escaped her lace cap quivering. “Many, mind you, many women. Of low character! It’s said you pay these creatures an enticement, so you might cover your dalliances and…” She closed her eyes, not willing to face him as she spoke the final charge. “Alleviate your conscience.”
Exhausted, she expelled a breath and looked down, stroking Walter’s head far too vigorously. “Pray, tell me there is nothing to this baseless charge! Why, I told Mrs. Venables as much. Not my Marcus, I said.”
“Ah. Is that all?” He leaned back in his chair.
So people had finally taken notice of his quiet acts of rebellion. Even Towle had alluded to it earlier with his mention of rumors.
“Please, tell me the truth, that I might find relief! Who would say such awful, awful things?”
“Well. Let me set your mind at ease, then. It’s true.”
His mother shrieked. Walter took the opportunity to leap from her lap to the floor, ears flapping as he shook himself off.
“At least in half.”
Marcus grinned, then laced his fingers before him on the table, quite pleased with himself. Hopefully those most upset with his actions were Tories. How he relished being a bee in their bonnets.
“Which half?” she wailed.
Marcus decided not to torment her any longer.
“I have been practicing my own form of charity, I suppose you might call it. Women find themselves in an, er, impossible situation, and their pleas for assistance fall upon deaf ears. But I am happy to provide them with whatever amount they need to start anew.”
To keep them far from the “charity” others might extend, more like. Marcus very much enjoyed subverting austere institutions and their usual methods, not to mention their patrons. He may find himself thwarted politically, but privately, there was still plenty of justice he could mete out. Sometimes he was grateful for the silly shoe polish money.
“It’s only been for the past year or so. It seems word has gotten around,” he added with a bit of smugness.
“Oh, Marcus,” his mother groaned. “For a moment I’d thought… well.” Suddenly she looked a bit crestfallen.
He had an inkling as to why.
“The fathering of the children is, of course, baseless.” He thought it was obvious, but he decided he ought to correct his mother explicitly, lest she track down one of these poor girls, desperate to see her supposed grandchild. “Why, I can scarcely remember when last I’d had time to pay a young lady a compliment, let alone call on one.” He recalled Towle’s admonishment again, and he felt a pang of loneliness.
“And you never shall, at this rate!” his mother said, cutting off his line of thought.
“Calm down, Mama—recall your nerves,” Marcus said, frowning.
She wasn’t usually so harsh in tone as this. And although he could be single-minded, and at times even a bit of a heel, Marcus didn’t relish his mother’s fury. Especially when he found himself agreeing with it.
“What young lady would entertain your suit, acting as you do without thought for your reputation, your family, even your home! Why, if Mr. Hartley were alive—” She stopped abruptly, eyes filled with unshed tears.
His impassioned mask, the one he’d honed during his years as a solicitor, fell away.
The invocation of his father cut him. And now he glared at his mother, daring her to go where they both typically feared to tread: the memory of Lewis Hartley. He could practically feel the blood pumping in his veins. For a moment Marcus wondered if he should go all in, shouting and fighting, rather than sidestep once again what neither had spoken of since his father’s death. But he had no desire to endure his mother’s sobbing. So instead they both sat in silence. Thinking of the happy family they’d once been.
Walter had found something interesting under the table and was digging into the thick carpet, making low whuffing noises in between stretches of frenzied scratching.
Finally, with fury in his veins and acid on his tongue, Marcus spoke.
“I promise you then, Mama, that I shall marry the next young lady I lay eyes upon.”
“Oh, Marcus,” his mother sighed, her voice full of sorrow. “Listen to you! You speak as if this matter were some mere jest! Something droll for you to place in the betting book of your club! This is your life, your well-being, and you… you fritter it away, and for naught! Don’t you realize, I only wish to see you settled and content? And I worry, I do. All this worry for you, day in and day out. It’s unseemly, forfeiting one’s life and happiness like this!”
Marcus sat in silence. Perhaps there was a measure of truth to her words.
Which was why he would not dignify them with a response. He was content to remain on this path through life. More than content, actually. But he did need to reassess his efforts, so he did not end up twiddling his thumbs with nonsense while the conservatives gained seats in Parliament. He had to do more, blast it. Be more. Somehow.
A tap at the door sliced through the thickening tension. The footman entered, looking anxiously from Marcus to his mother.
“Yes, Ellis, what is it?”
“Apologies, sir, but I can’t find Fennel—”
“He’s to bed, per my instruction,” Marcus explained.
His mother snorted ruefully at that, which he ignored. He was still fuming over what she’d left unsaid about his father, and the all-too-pointed attack on his current situation. That she’d dare bring the man up, when Marcus had taken pains to never speak of him. For years.
It hurt too damn bloody much. Marcus missed him something fierce.
And he was nowhere near what he ought to be.
“Well, then, I suppose I ought to tell you, sir—it seems there’s someone at the door. Not the back door, the front.”
“At this hour?” his mother screeched, then mumbled something under her breath about expectations of propriety in this part of town.
“Ah,” Ellis looked at him and winced. “It appears to be a lady, sir. Seeking assistance.”
“Oh, is it now?” Marcus raised his brows, doing his best to keep from smiling as he turned to face his mother.
She was as white as a ghost.
“I’ll be there in a moment, Ellis.” He stood up and made a show of smoothing out his lapels. “Well, isn’t this a lovely surprise?” He grinned at his mother. Let her get in a dither.
“Marcus, wait—surely you did not mean what you said,” she sputtered, reaching for him as he passed by. “Not the next woman, in the completely—”
But he did not hear the rest of her exhortations. He was already taking long strides out of the room, making his way quickly toward the entrance hall.
The front door was ajar, with Ellis standing alongside it, looking as useless as the rest of the household staff. Marcus silently waved the footman off, hoping he’d make himself scarce. This was no doubt one of his charity cases, and he didn’t wish to alarm the girl with too many listeners present.
He did, however, wish to alarm his mother, to hold her feet to the fire and allow her to think he’d make good on his ridiculous claim. And he didn’t need an audience for the performance that would require, his first attempt at flirtation in heaven knew how long.
But when he swung the door open, he was so taken aback he forgot to put on his charming smile.
A woman stood in the shadows, staring so intently that for the second time that day Marcus found himself turning to look behind him, to see if someone else loitered in the hall.
“Mr. Hartley, I presume?”
Her voice sounded a bit younger than he expected, and more refined as well. Marcus took a step back, allowing more of the lamplight from the hall to spill outside onto the doorstep. Dressed in horribly wrinkled linen and an inexplicable black straw bonnet, she nevertheless stood as if she wore heavy court dress, rigid and stern. There was nothing despairing about her; rather, her posture suggested she had just arrived with the calvary, ready to render Marcus whatever assistance he required.
Or she deigned.
“Yes,” he said slowly, drawing the word out far past its single syllable.
“Your butler is terribly rude,” she said, before adding with a hint of shock, “Only it’s quite late and he’s left me out on the street like a… a…”
“Doxy,” he muttered to himself.
For he could immediately tell that she was the furthest thing from it. Hence her indignation. A bloody lady had turned up on his doorstep. But how? Usually the women he helped had nothing to their name—no money, no family, no social standing. Struggling widows and young girls, usually thin and infirm. Never young ladies with round cheeks and imperious attitudes. Had this woman somehow found herself seduced by some reprobate rake and cast aside? If so, she was either terribly proud or somewhat na?ve, eschewing the back door as she did. And at this hour.
“He’s not my butler. Just a footman.” Marcus stepped back sheepishly, holding the door open wide. “Please, come in, come in.” Then, anticipating a wariness on her part, he explained, “My mother is within. We only just finished our dinner.”
Her eyes widened at that. They were quite large, he thought, even in this low light.
“Have you eaten?”
“No,” she replied, looking down, as if it humiliated her to admit it.
“Do come in, then. And we can sort out just what assistance you require.”
Truth be told, Marcus was dying to know what had befallen her. His mind raced. She clearly wasn’t the usual prostitute, shop girl, or factory worker; she reminded him more of his own female relatives. If any of them were to ever wander the streets alone at this hour, seeking aid at the doorsteps of strangers… his stomach twisted at the thought.
And then he knew he couldn’t follow through with his intent to torment his mother in this way. It wouldn’t do, not at all, to shamelessly flirt with someone in dire straits. He chided himself for being so conniving.
It had happened more often than he would care to admit as of late, that he would set aside his personal morals in exchange for some sort of political advantage or quid pro quo. But he hadn’t realized until this moment that it seemed the habit had seeped from his professional sphere into the personal. Was he really so eager to teach his mother a lesson that he would use an already mistreated and deceived young woman as a tool? In the stifling summer night, with his senses riled from the trials of the day, he felt slow, defeated. His entire person became heavy with the implications of his actions.
Just who was he becoming?
The woman stepped forward, pausing at the threshold to peer at him with curiosity. “I was told that you are a gentleman.”
Usually Marcus would laugh at such a statement, but his mood had soured, and he felt unlike himself.
“I’ve been informed that I am,” he said, attempting a light tone as he shut the door.
She didn’t smile at that. But he did, and gestured to the hall. She raised an eyebrow, but allowed him to lead her to the dining room. Suddenly Marcus wished he’d something to offer her besides cold suet dumplings and his mother’s frenetic company.
“Oh good, you’re finished. I hope you sent her—” Mrs. Hartley had begun saying, before the words caught in her open mouth as she looked up and saw the lady accompanying Marcus into the dining room.
“Mama, please allow me to introduce you to…” He turned to the young lady. “Goodness, it seems I’m in as poor form as Ellis was when he left you at the door.”
“Yes, it seems you are,” she sniffed.
She then strode forward.
“Please forgive my son, miss; he can be quite the boor. I am Mrs. Hartley. And you are?”
“A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Hartley. I am Miss Wolfenden.”
“Please, please, sit!”
Wolfenden?Marcus ignored his mother’s fretting over niceties; his thoughts kicked up as he watched the lady take his former seat across from his mother, then reach up to untie her bonnet. She removed it, revealing hair of a pleasant enough ashy color. Could it be…? He had to know.
“Do you hail from London, Miss Wolfenden?” he asked nonchalantly, pretending to flick away a speck of dust from his sleeve.
“I should think not,” she declared proudly. “I am from Lancashire. Knockton, to be precise.”
“Oh,” he said, still aloof even as his body thrummed with excitement. “Why, I myself have a home in Knockton. An interesting little bit of country.”
That ought to do it. She’d put two and two together, and mark him for who he was. Such a thing had never happened to him before, and Marcus found himself strangely anticipating it, being recognized.
“Certainly? I apologize, I can’t seem to recall any Mr. Hartleys at present. How terrible of me.” She looked at him, but only out of courtesy, obviously unbothered despite her words.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.Perhaps Towle wasn’t far off the mark. Opening markets had, apparently, done little to endear Marcus to the local gentry. And if a Wolfenden could not pick him out of a crowd, what did that say for his prospects with the rest of his constituency? He drew in a worried breath. Come to think of it, when he had he been in Knockton last?
Miss Wolfenden studied him, obviously waiting for him to get on with the conversation.
“What my son didn’t say, Miss Wolfenden, is that—”
Before his mother could finish and expose him, Marcus sat down alongside her and placed a filial hand upon her arm. With a start, he nearly pulled it back. When had his mother become so frail? But now was not the time to think about that, and he patted her gently.
“Lovely, lovely. Don’t you think, Mama? A lovely place for a lovely young lady.” He smiled at Miss Wolfenden, then back at his mother, who gaped at him as if he’d gone mad.
“Marcus,” his mother said, her voice uncharacteristically measured, “are you quite well?”
“More than well.” He turned to Miss Wolfenden once more, who was looking as if she’d just detected an awful smell.
Marcus cursed silently. Perhaps he ought to tone it down. But… this was Miss Wolfenden. Of the Knockton Wolfendens. There’d been Wolfendens in Knockton even before Duke William had claimed the crown. And for some backward, countrified reason, Baron Methering still held sway over the town. This woman might only be a baron’s daughter, but to Marcus, she was damn near royalty.
And she didn’t know who the bloody hell he was.
This did not bode well for him. One and a half years until the next general election… suddenly felt like a mere matter of days.
And here was Marcus, an unknown bachelor, joking about marrying the next woman he laid eyes on.
His mind caught on that. He could practically hear the gears working as his gaze rose to Miss Wolfenden once more.
“My son is too humble,” his mother said, with a dash of nervous laughter.
“Am I? What is there to be humble about?”
“Marcus!” she sputtered.
No. He’d never been humble. But just now, he realized, he needed to be more ambitious than he’d ever been.
Had he ever before experienced such fantastic luck? For on his doorstep, and now at his table, was none other than one Miss Wolfenden of Methering Manor, unmarried and in some manner of need. His low mood at being unknown by a prominent constituent evaporated, leaving behind a man he knew and recognized. Focused. Confident. And yes, a bit underhanded, but wasn’t everyone these days?
Still, this was all rather sudden. Better to keep his identity under his hat until he’d sorted out the best use of this chance encounter. How might he manage to wring Baron Methering’s support from this?
“Marcus!” his mother exclaimed again. “You—”
“Ought to offer some sustenance to poor, famished Miss Wolfenden!” Marcus interrupted handily, and brought an exaggerated hand to his forehead. “How could I forget?” He looked at his mother, grinning like a madman, hoping she might somehow understand what he was trying to convey, and what he was trying to avoid: any mention of the particulars of his residency in Knockton.
For now.
Marcus went to ring for help once again, that something resembling a meal might be fetched from the kitchens. And a thought came to him: If he were to heed Towle’s suggestion, he in fact ought to take a wife.
Marcus slowly turned about, watching Miss Wolfenden, taking stock of the possibilities.
She was pleasant enough, he supposed, with an airy demeanor and a faultless complexion. A bit on the plump side, though Marcus decided it suited her features. Her eyes were rather nice. Her garb was frowzy, but as Marcus didn’t consider himself a sharp dresser, he wouldn’t fault it in another.
She stared back at him as if he were quite mad. Which perhaps he was.
But what if he were to make good on his threat after all, and marry this Wolfenden woman, the first he had clapped eyes on? It was rash, to say the least, and Marcus wasn’t spontaneous as a rule. On the other hand, he would not lose his seat in the next general. For no one in Knockton could help but recognize his name if it were tied to the Wolfendens. By Jove, all his problems could be solved in one fell swoop.
It was worth considering.
He smiled. Miss Wolfenden did not smile back. Drat. His skills of attraction, if he’d ever had any, seemed to have fallen by the wayside. But he would press on.
He ought to keep all options open.