Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
R eally, Marina thought as she stared at the Viscount Gloustoshire and his ingratiating smile, it was her own fault. She should have put it together. Percy Dunn, the Duke of Haddington. Andrew Dunn, Viscount Gloustoshire. It was the same name , for goodness' sake. And now that she stood here, with both men looking at her expectantly, she could see that they had the same eyes, too.
Except while the duke's eyes shone with playfulness and wit and, yes, sometimes sparked with annoyance, the viscount's gaze always made her feel as though he were assessing a cut of beef at the butcher's—not that, she assumed, the haughty viscount had ever set foot in a butcher's shop.
But she hadn't put it together, and now she felt oddly as though she had been knocked upside the head.
"My lord," she said, unable to hide her surprise. "What a pleasure to see you here."
The viscount looked quizzical for the merest second, then gave a slight chuckle. "Ah, your cousin must be up to his old tricks, my lady. Did he not tell you that it was I who invited him—and yourself, of course—to this event?"
Marina may not have found every one of Society's rules to be worth following—those that demanded that ladies always maintain an even temper, for example, often caused her significant difficulty—but she was, nevertheless, a lady born and bred, and thus did not make it a habit of speaking oaths, even within her own thoughts.
Some circumstances, however, could not be met with polite language.
Bloody bleeding thrice-cursed Martin , she swore mentally. That utter, wretched, conniving beast!
Viscount Gloustoshire was one of her suitors—one of her only suitors, if the truth were to be told. He had been to dinner at Marina's home several times in the past month or so, invited by Martin to discuss matters of business, supposedly. The viscount seemed to spend little time actually meeting with Martin, however. Instead, he had taken to attempting to ingratiate himself with Marina, making more and more overt indications that he wished to court her.
Marina, not wishing to insult the man, had attempted, with each successive overture towards courtship, tried to gently demur, but Viscount Gloustoshire was either blind to her intention or willfully ignoring it.
It had gotten to the point where Marina was avoiding the man altogether. The last time Martin had announced that he was coming to dinner, Marina had faked a headache and dined in her room. She'd even downed the absolutely vile tincture that her mother had sent to her rooms, in order to sell the lie. The bitterness had lingered on her tongue for hours.
It wasn't that there was anything wrong with the viscount, Marina supposed. He wasn't impolite, or ugly, or old enough to be Marina's father—or worse, her grandfather. Lord only knew there were plenty of young ladies who were forced into marriage with toothless septuagenarians and sent off to molder in far-off estates with their ancient spouses. Some other ladies might have even appreciated the candor with which Viscount Gloustoshire approached the whole business. He hadn't indulged in flattery that was destined to disappear once the vows were said and had made no protestations of love to Marina—or even of an overpouring of admiration for her specifically. He needed a wife, he'd told her, in a tone that suggested quite clearly that any wife would do.
She didn't have a good reason to say no. Except the thought of saying yes made something inside her cringe.
Marina had been trying to hide the viscount's interest from her family, which was to say, her mother and Martin, lest their insistence that she marry in general transform into insistence that she marry this man in particular. Marina had thought she'd done a good job of distracting them, but apparently Martin had noticed.
That was why he had been so vague whenever she'd asked how they'd ended up attending this party. Wretched, wretched, wretched man.
Marina wanted to stamp her foot in frustration but made herself smile, instead.
"Oh, Martin," she said airily, while fervently wishing that the man in question would burn his tongue on his tea badly enough that he wouldn't be able to taste anything for a week. The food here was delicious, too, so it would be a fitting punishment. "He must have thought it would be a wonderful surprise." If the viscount noticed that Marina did not confirm whether or not it actually was a wonderful surprise, he didn't let on.
"That sounds like him," said the viscount, which was positively mad, as Martin was one of the most humorless men alive. "Good old Packley." He turned to the duke. "Forgive me, cousin—you can hardly fault me for wishing to greet the much prettier member of your party first."
"Of course," said the duke. He was frowning again and if it had just been the two of them, Marina would have rolled her eyes—given his perverse enjoyment of her rudeness, he would probably be delighted—but that would invite more questions from the viscount than she was prepared to answer. "I'm glad you could make it, Andrew." He did not look glad.
"Wouldn't have missed it, wouldn't have missed it," said the viscount affably. He turned back to Marina. "Did you have a previous acquaintance with my cousin, then, Lady Marina? If you did not anticipate my presence, I mean."
Viscount Gloustoshire was goading someone, but Marina wasn't sure if it was her or the duke.
"I rather assumed that it had something to do with my cousin's business interests," said Marina, striving for the airy tone of a woman who couldn't be bothered to remember the details, as opposed to a woman who had been inundated with the details, and knew they involved Martin wishing to snare the duke like a fox on a hunt.
Though Lord only knew why she was protecting Martin, when he'd also tried to snare her —a trap made of the viscount.
"And that I was invited along to accompany Lady Lucy."
"That is," said the duke, his voice taking on a slight growling tone that Marina could not afford to think too hard about at the moment, "why you recommended that I invite Lady Marina to my estate, is it not, cousin?" He placed a subtle but distinct emphasis on the possessives.
The viscount gave the duke a terse smile. "Of course. I thought this might be a good opportunity for them to get to know one another."
"Hm." The duke frowned harder. The viscount watched him, a strange energy beginning to crackle in the air.
"His Grace and I were just taking a turn about the gardens," Marina said, suddenly possessed with an urgent need to dispel the odd tension between the two men.
Servants bustled about, fetching luggage from the viscount's carriage and carrying it inside, and for a moment, Marina envied them for having a reason to be anywhere that wasn't here.
"It was so fine this morning that it would be a shame not to take advantage of the pleasant weather." Inwardly, Marina sighed. Conversing about the weather was the lowest form of civil discourse, and she wasn't even conversing about the weather accurately . It was pleasant, but hardly so beautiful that it wasn't to be missed. She couldn't even reassure herself that perhaps being boring would put off Viscount Gloustoshire—she'd tried that ages ago.
For a moment neither kinsman reacted, and Marina thought with an unpleasant humor that this was the second uncomfortable conversation she'd had in this very drive in the last two days. Tomorrow she'd be avoiding the place.
Then, Viscount Gloustoshire broke away from his cousin's glare to smile at Marina in a way that made her half wish she hadn't bothered trying to interrupt.
"How lovely. I'd be pleased to take you for a turn myself, after I've freshened up a bit from the journey." He swept a hand over an utterly unrumpled form; he must have stopped nearby to tidy himself before arriving.
Marina grasped for a way to refuse. This was the problem with the viscount, she thought with an inward sigh. He never asked what she would like. He would merely offer up information regarding what he would like, in an oh-so-reasonable tone, which left her as the contrary one if she disagreed. Marina had yet to decide if this was a ploy or if he was just naturally disinclined to care about anyone else's wishes.
"Oh dear," she said, thinking of an excuse with an exciting bolt of clarity. "I would love to—" an utter lie "—but I am due to meet with Lady Lucy—" a lie "—and then must rest before this afternoon's scheduled entertainment." This was not technically a lie. Admittedly, she had not planned on having a rest before the afternoon, but now knowing that she'd be dealing with the viscount, the need to be restored and bolstered asserted itself. "I believe we are having a picnic!"
And then, lacking confidence that this conversation was likely to improve in any way, she decided to take a page from the duke, copying his behavior from this very location, only one day prior: she turned on her heel and fled.
"Your Grace! Your Grace!"
Percy did not stop. He kept his stride long and hatched a new plan for this year's Parliamentary session. Forget the whole nonsense about banning mothers from planning parties. What he was actually going to propose was a bill that made it illegal for people to shout your title after you when you were clearly trying to walk away . It would be a capital offense.
"Your Grace! Oh, I do beg your pardon, Your Grace!"
How many times could Percy reasonably ignore the Earl of Packley before it became fully implausible that he hadn't heard him? Percy had the distinct feeling that he had already surpassed that point.
He stopped abruptly and turned. The earl, who had been hurrying at his heels, nearly crashed into him.
"My—oh. Goodness. Your Grace, my apologies," said the man, stumbling all over himself. "Thank you for stopping. I do say—you were quite in your reveries there, weren't you?" Packley gave an awkward little chuckle.
"Hm," said Percy succinctly. It was such a useful syllable, hm . He turned and began walking again, tempering his stride—with the utmost reluctance—so that the shorter earl could keep up with him.
The assembled party was heading out, traipsing up the lightly worn path that snaked along one of the hills on the estate, to a picturesque spot where they would have the picnic that Lady Marina had spoken of earlier in their conversation with his cousin Andrew.
The thought of his cousin with Lady Marina momentarily distracted Percy from whatever it was that Packley was building himself up to, which involved, apparently, a lot of hemming and hawing and Your Grace -ing.
Up ahead, Lady Marina was walking arm and arm with Joseph, but Andrew wasn't far, having offered accompaniment to Lucy, who was chatting amiably with her new friend. The conversation with Andrew and Lady Marina in the drive had set Percy's teeth on edge, a sensation that had become more and more frequent in his interactions with Andrew as the years had gone on.
When they'd been boys, Percy had all but idolized his cousin, seven years his senior. He had a few early memories of trotting around grassy hills not unlike this one—though the blurriness of childhood memory left Percy unsure if the hill in question had been at Andrew's family's estate or Percy's—his cousin taking care to help him over hurdles too big for Percy's smaller legs.
As they'd grown older, however, a coolness had settled in between them. Percy would have attributed it to age alone—what twenty year old man wished to have a boy of thirteen constantly dogging his heels?—but things hadn't improved once Percy had grown into manhood himself. Now there remained simply a tension that Percy didn't quite understand but that always spurred him to become rather childishly competitive.
Percy wasn't necessarily proud of it—some voice in the back of his head argued that perhaps such behavior wasn't quite becoming in a duke of six and twenty—but seeing the way his cousin's eyes had lingered interestingly on Lady Marina, her cheeks pink from their antics in the garden, had made Percy want her more, not less.
As if she could sense his gaze, Lady Marina chose that moment to glance over her shoulder, her brow furrowing lightly when she spotted him talking to her cousin. Before he could respond in so much as a nod, however, she turned back to her conversation with Lucy.
Reluctantly, Percy also returned to his conversation with Packley. "If you would permit it, Your Grace, I should like to show you some preliminary business plans I've drawn up regarding how my contacts in the Canadas, combined with your superior shipping technology, could revolutionize the way iceboxes across Britain are stocked. We'd have decreased meltage, which translates, naturally, to increased profits—I shan't bore you with the numbers at this moment—"
That's something of a claim , though Percy wearily—not regarding Packley's claims of profits, which seemed sound enough, though Percy would want to see whatever paperwork Packley was able to provide, but of not boring him. Percy began to half listen as Packley droned on about the makeup of the ship's hulls—which was, at best, extremely boring, and at worse, extremely presumptuous, given that they were Percy's ships and therefore quite familiar to him.
He turned his attention instead to the beguiling figure of Lady Marina, who was leaping nimbly over a small puddle, then executing, for Lucy, an excessively elaborate curtsey, as if she'd just performed a great feat. Lucy made a show of applause. Percy felt a warm sort of affection suffuse him, which was odd, because Lady Marina wasn't doing anything alluring in the slightest. Instead, she was being rather silly. It was…adorable.
Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately? He was scarcely certain—he didn't have a chance to dwell on that feeling, because it was quickly replaced by a stab of jealousy when Lady Marina turned that happy smile on Joseph, who returned the expression, and not in his usual, stiffly proper manner, but a real smile, which had become so rare to see these days on his face.
"What do you think, Your Grace?" Packley had evidently wrapped up his extensive explanation while Percy idiotically seethed over an innocent smile between one of his oldest friends and a woman he'd known for a day.
Percy yanked his concentration back to the conversation. "Perhaps," he said. "I'll look at the plans."
Packley jolted, evidently surprised; apparently, he had expected Percy to fall all over himself in eagerness to join this business venture. "Ah, yes, very good, Your Grace," he said fumblingly, as if he were searching for the magic words that would make Percy come to his senses and agree on the spot.
Percy might have told him that Packley's best chance at that was if he declined to find any further words, possibly ever again but for an hour, at least, but instead returned his attention to Lady Marina's figure, which swayed enticingly as she walked.
Packley followed his gaze and unfortunately—or fortunately? Truly, Percy used to be a man who knew his own mind and felt ridiculous to find himself so twisted up in knots today—misunderstood.
"Ah," Packley said, with the low-down tone of a man who feels he's been caught out. "I see what you are thinking, Your Grace."
Percy certainly bloody hoped not, as he had been admiring the curve of Lady Marina's arse beneath her skirts. "You do?" he said.
"Yes." Packley sounded remorseful instead of furious, so certainly he was wrong about Percy's state of mind. "You are thinking that a man who cannot manage his family cannot be trusted to manage a business. You are wondering why my cousin is still unmarried at her age."
Well, he hadn't been, but now he certainly was.
"Hm," he said. So damn useful.
Packley sighed a repentant sigh.
"Far be it from me to speak ill of the dead, but the previous earl was something of a—" he lowered his voice, as if he were about to say something truly scandalous "—disorganized sort."
This was so mild a critique and so at odds with Packley's build up that Percy actually frowned at him in surprise. Packley took this in the opposite vein than that in which it was intended.
"I know, I know," he hurried to say. "One oughtn't criticize one's family, and certainly not those members whom we have lost." He put a hand over his heart piously.
"But in light of the late earl's—" down to a whisper again "—disorganization, Lady Marina spent more of her time managing the household and less time than was perhaps advised seeking a husband of her own. Though," Packley said with a sort of forced thoughtfulness, as if he were attempting to make it seem as though he were only now just thinking of this point, "certainly that experience in managing a household will commend her to a husband."
Ahead of them, Lucy was telling some story in an animated fashion. Joseph was grinning, Andrew looked politely amused, and Lady Marina was biting her lip and scrunching her nose as she giggled. It was hard to imagine that this bright, vivacious, fiery woman would have any trouble finding a suitor to snap her up, which must have meant things in her home were quite dire, indeed.
"Where was her mother in all this?" Percy demanded. Wouldn't it be the countess' job to manage the household, not her daughters? He was reasonably sure that the Countess of Packley—now the dowager countess, he supposed—yet lived.
Packley bowed his head solemnly. "The dowager countess, my esteemed aunt, was much bereft at the loss of her husband."
Though this sounded like a suitable answer on the surface, it did not escape Percy's attention that the math did not precisely add up. If Lady Marina had been forced to take charge of her household while her father was alive, it could not have been grief over his loss that led to her mother's disregard for her responsibilities.
Yet Percy could not think of a way to bring this up that didn't reveal more interest in Lady Marina than was strictly seemly.
"I see," he said instead, which proved more than enough to get Packley to continue.
"I assure you, however, Your Grace, that I have the matter well in hand. Marina will be married this year, despite her age." Then, seeming to remember that Percy had an unmarried sister only one year younger than Lady Marina, cleared this throat several times in rapid succession and sputtered,
"Not that two and twenty is so very old, that is. Simply that, ah, it is time, rather, for Lady Marina to be wed, though of course what is time ? Certainly something that might be applied differently, for different ladies, in different situations, which is to say—"
Packley continued to natter on in this manner for some time, but Percy had given up listening entirely. He could not banish from his mind the thought that Lady Marina would be wed, which crept into his brain with snaky, snarling tendrils.
And, more than that, he could not fathom why it was that he cared.