Forty-one
Lavender
Retreating to the safe haven of her workshop, Lavender mentally shoved her grandmother’s startling declaration aside to dictate a schedule for the next day’s work. She’d only begun sketching Thea’s wedding gown, but her head was too muddled to work on it today.
With immediate tasks out of the way, she stared at her littered desk, looking for more work, but her mind boggled in incomprehension. A presentation! At court, wearing the Wycliffe emerald that would have been rightfully hers if her father had married her mother. . .
That ship had long since sailed and sunk. It might have mattered when she was in school and wanted other girls to like her, instead of laugh behind her back. Those days were well gone.
In this past year of living with her new family, she’d learned gems, gowns, and marrying the wealthiest suitor one could snare were silly dreams for the bored and desperate.
She was neither. Having a real family, and an outlet for her fashion and design talent, provided all the satisfaction her heart had ever desired.
Of course, she’d also believed having an occupation meant she didn’t need a man in her life, since she was, unlike other women, able to support herself.
But lately. . . She’d stupidly been enjoying the company of a dangerously intelligent duke’s son, a gentleman so far beyond her humble origins he may as well occupy the moon.
He had talked of escorting her to the theater, as if he enjoyed her company, when most likely, all he was seeing was her bosom.
Both her grandmothers had warned her that’s what men wanted most. A duke’s son certainly didn’t need an illiterate bastard to keep him company for any other reason.
She’d felt so brave and confident in his company. . . She’d even convinced herself that they could talk as equals, like Clare and Hunt. But Clare and Hunt were equals. She and Fort most definitely were not. He worshipped books and she couldn’t even read.
Seeking sensibility from her roiling thoughts, Lavender waved off her employees at day’s end, then fled to her sensible, down-to-earth maternal grandmother in the kitchen. Peeling potatoes, Nan looked up in delight at her arrival, which soothed Lavender’s rattled nerves without a word.
“An heiress now, are thee?” Nan asked with a twinkle in her eyes. “Not too good to visit your old Nan?”
Lavender hugged her grandmother’s plump neck, drinking in the scent of powder and soap that hadn’t changed since her childhood. “I’m only an heiress if Hunt declares it so. I prefer to make myself useful so they won’t cast me out.”
Nan chuckled and shook her head, causing her mobcap to slip precariously on her thinning hair. “Everyone loves thee. How can they not? And now here comes a duke’s son a’courting! Lady Lavinia must be pleased as peaches. He seems a right nice fellow, makes those scalawag lads behave, leastways.”
Startled and aghast, Lavender stared at her. Courting? Was age stealing her uneducated but sensible Nan’s wits so soon? “What? No one’s courting me.”
Nan waved a careless hand. “Pish-tosh, ’course he is. Proper manners that boy has, asked me first for permission. Me—as if I were as grand as Lady Lav. A lad like that don’t come ’round often. Your father never so much as spoke to me even oncet, like I’m some old cow what got no say.”
This was not helping steady her roiling thoughts. “Lord Fortescue? You are talking about Fort?”
“Well, who else I’d be talking of? You got some other lad hidden off? Kitchen’s been all a’talk about your goings on. It’s about time he said a word.”
Goings on? This could not be right. She was missing something. “Was Fort just here?”
Nan returned to paring. “Said as he was going to talk to Lady Lav, asked my advice on what to say, very respectful, he was.”
“Respectful would be talking to me, first!” Lifting her hem, Lavender raced for the kitchen stairs. Nan must have misunderstood. Lord Fortescue? Courting her? Had that stupid pendant gone to his empty head?
She was out of breath by the time she’d raced up two flights of stairs and down the corridor to the suite Lady Lavinia and Lady Spalding shared. Hearing her paternal grandmother’s strident speech, she didn’t stop to tidy herself as usual but barged through the open doorway.
Fort sat on one of the gilded parlor chairs, looking right at home sipping tea from floral bone china. He rose and bowed when she entered. His smile quickly descended from wide to wary at her frosty glower.
She’d hardly had time to consider her words. As they had this morning, they simply spilled out. Apparently she had a lot more to say than she’d realized. “No one is discussing my future without me!”
“Sit, child.” The baroness pointed at an empty wing chair. “Who better to discuss your future than those who care about you and want what’s best? You certainly aren’t planning ahead.”
“I plan.” Lavender didn’t sit but crossed her arms and scowled. “I am planning a wedding gown for Thea. And a line of infant gowns we can sell in the shop. And capes and hats with those furs Henri found. I have even more plans for when I’ve saved enough—”
Lady Spalding chuckled. Hunt’s aunt was far more agreeable than Lady Lavinia. “Sit child, so Lord Fortescue does not hover so,” she chided.
Lavender turned and frowned at him waiting politely for her to alight. Ignoring the comfortable chair offered, she dragged a straight-back chair over and set it directly in front of the old ladies on the sofa.
The obstinate fool pulled his chair up beside her and winked. She ought to smack him, but he was so. . . so terribly handsome and sure of himself, and she was not at all certain of where she was going or what she was doing. She was just. . . angry. And confused.
“You do not discuss my future without me,” she told him. “What foolery are you telling Lady Lavinia?”
“I may have been a poor student, but my mother taught me what is proper.” He bowed slightly in her direction.
Despite his disheveled neckcloth and less than elegant coat, he looked like a duke’s son.
“If I am to court a lady, I must earn the approval of her father. In the absence of such, Lady Lavinia and Mrs. Ingraham must substitute.”
“Gentlemen court the suit of fathers in order to achieve the best settlements!” she cried. “I have naught to settle except what I’ve earned for myself!”
He nodded acknowledgment. “I fear I have learned the rules but do not grasp the particulars behind them. I truly care nothing about settlements. I have a strong back, a good brain, and an adequate income. But I see where that might matter to you, and I apologize. I simply wished to be respectful. As I have explained to your grandmothers, any decision I make for my future entirely depends on you. May I be allowed to court you, please?”
She gaped. She had been so intent on straightening out his presumptuousness, that she had not considered that he actually desired to court her. “Why?” was all she knew to ask.
“Why do I wish to court you? You wish me to say the words in front of the ladies?”
“I’ve not given my permission yet, you young whipper-snapper,” Lady Lavinia barked. “I demand to know where you will live and how much you’ll settle on her for pin money. I won’t be alive forever. I must sell that land set aside for her dowry or see it rot forever.”
Land? Dowry? Lavender ignored what she didn’t understand and concentrated on the shocking, terrifying gentleman studying her as he most likely studied his students. She’d almost come to think of him as friend. As suitor. . . ? She was unprepared.
Ignoring the well-meaning harridan, Fort stood and offered his hand, addressing his words to Lavender. “If you will give me permission to court you, we may discuss settlements when and if we reach an agreement.”
“She is not of age!” Lady Lavinia shouted as Lavender accepted his hand, probably out of defiance. But also because his strong hold thrilled her.
“Then we’ll elope if it comes to that.” Feeling decidedly wicked talking back to her intimidating baroness grandmother, Lavender tugged Fort from his polite bows of farewell and fled to the corridor.
“That was awful. Does nothing embarrass you?” she all but hissed. Then realizing she had no idea where to go next, she dithered.
“Let us find somewhere I can answer that freely. Now that Weston is installed up here, let’s try the east wing. It should be empty again.” He led her down the main stairs in full view of anyone below.
She was walking out with a gentleman who wasn’t family. It felt most strange.
The clocks were still on the library table, with only Major Fletcher studying them.
Hunt must have stored the gems in his vault.
They might all be fabulously wealthy or accomplish wonders they’d only been able to dream of, but that was all beyond her ability to comprehend.
The man holding her hand was a far more immediate threat to the future she had planned.
At this hour, most everyone had repaired to their rooms for naps and to dress for dinner. The halls were blessedly empty.
And she was following a man into an uninhabited wing without a chaperone. After a lifetime of concentrating on her work and avoiding men who looked on her as if she were ripe fruit, her world was in danger of turning inside-out. He was making her decidedly giddy.