Chapter 3
Chapter Three
“They must travel with me or they will be sad,” insisted Fanny, pushing out her lower lip as she clutched an armful of her favorite dolls, others lying on the floor of the hallway beneath her, some rag dolls, others with wooden limbs and stuffed bodies and one or two with painted china faces.
“I must travel with Aunt Beatrice or I will be sad.”
“Oh dear,” sighed Seraphine, having failed to reason with her daughter over where Fanny and her many dolls should ride in the carriages.
“Poor Aunt Beatrice and Cousin Louisa would be very squashed with you and all your dolls, as well as the Duke of Northwick. Poor Ezra would be very lonely by himself with the nursemaids too.”
“Why don’t I come with you in the second carriage with the nursemaids and Ezra, Fanny?
” suggested Louisa, crouching down beside the little girl and her mother.
“Then Aunt Beatrice and His Grace would have enough room. Aunt Beatrice needs plenty of cushions and the duke is very tall, but I can squeeze in anywhere easily.”
“But you don’t know all my dolls as well as Aunt Beatrice,” Fanny objected.
“I do know their names,” replied Louisa quickly. “That one is Susie, that one is Pepper, that one is Imogen…”
“Yes, but you don’t know their favorite suppers or colors,” interrupted the child unhappily, evidently dead-set on her great-aunt’s company. “They will cry if you get things wrong, and then I will cry too.”
“Never mind, my dear,” put in Lady Esher, breaking off from instructing maids and footmen about placement of trunks, bags and hampers. “I shall join Fanny and her dolls in the carriage with the nursemaids and you shall ride with Ezra and His Grace in my carriage.”
“Will you have enough room, Aunt Beatrice?” Louisa queried doubtfully and Lady Esher patted her shoulder. “Will the Duke of Northwick want to travel with a child?”
“We will all have more than enough room,” Lady Esher pronounced with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“Ezra is small and will certainly take up less space than twelve dolls. I believe the boy is rather attached to His Grace too, from what Seraphine and Damien said at dinner. There should be no problems…”
Here, Lady Esher paused thoughtfully, and then nodded to herself.
“I shall go and speak to the Duke of Northwick myself now, Louisa, and the nursemaids too. Set your mind at rest. Now, Fanny, help your mother pack those dolls into their bags for the journey.”
Everything in hand in the hallway again, Lady Esher sailed away outside.
“A word please, Your Grace,” said the firm voice of silver-haired Lady Esher, who seemed to have appeared from nowhere at Benedict’s shoulder as he was speaking to the coachman about their first stops on the road. “In private.”
“Of course, Lady Esher,” Benedict replied politely, nodding to the coachman and offering the elderly lady his arm.
Was he to receive a belated dressing down for his disruptive arrival on the drive last night?
Lady Esher had been perfectly civil with Benedict at dinner last night although he felt her sharp blue eyes resting thoughtfully upon him at several points.
Lady Louisa had seemed a little subdued, he thought, although perhaps that was only tiredness from the journey.
They walked a little way down the drive and out of earshot of the servants before she said anything hinting at her motives for this conversation. It was quickly apparent that the dust incident was not the main subject on Lady Esher’s mind.
“My niece and young Ezra will be riding with you today, Your Grace,” she informed him briskly. “Fanny insists that I accompany her and her dozen dolls in the other carriage and for the sake of peace, I have agreed. I am told that the boy is fond of you and should give no trouble.”
“As you wish,” returned Benedict with a nod. “I am at your service on this journey, Lady Esher. The Duke of Wexford has tasked me with delivering you all safely to the north and I am not a man who shirks from my commitments.”
At this, Lady Esher laughed aloud, although not unkindly or mockingly.
“A very clever answer, young man. You generally have no commitments, as far as I know, and have been very careful not to acquire any. That is your own business, of course.”
Benedict smiled and looked down. Of course, Lady Esher would know something of him. Even among elderly ladies living in Cumbria, it seemed something of his reputation preceded him.
“Most people would not think five-and-thirty young, Lady Esher,” he returned as his only answer.
“It is young by my standards, Your Grace. I remember your mother, you see, although after her marriage, we lost touch.”
“Ah,” he murmured, breathing in slowly and hoping that Lady Easher was not about to unpack her long-cherished memories of his dead mother. “I see.”
While Benedict could still just about remember his mother’s face and her smile, he had been only ten years of age when she died. More often, it was other less welcome expressions that came back to him unbidden. He would rather not have these recalled right now.
“Anyway, that is a long time ago and I am not one of these ancient dowagers who lives in the past,” Lady Esher continued, to Benedict’s relief.
“No, it is the present I wish to discuss with you, Your Grace. In particular, I want you to know that I am well aware of every scandal associated with you and every shred of gossip published in the gutter press.”
Benedict sighed, relieved but weary.
“I am on holiday from scandal and gossip whenever I am at Wexford Manor. It shall also be so on this journey, Lady Esher.”
“Good,” she replied, fixing him with a glance of stern steeliness that could have made a lesser man quail before her. “For my niece, Lady Louisa, knows nothing of you, and understands even less. I want to make sure you understand that she is entirely off-limits. Do you understand me?”
“I assure you, Lady Esher, that I am no seducer of innocent young ladies. You cannot say that scandals of that nature have ever followed me.”
This was true enough. All his life, Benedict had preferred experience to innocence and sought the company of women who delighted in the pleasures of the flesh as much as he did.
“No, but your reputation alone might be injurious to an innocent young woman, if we do not take steps to avoid such damage,” pointed out the silver-haired lady.
“If you make even one wrong move in that regard, Your Grace, I possess enough respectable relatives, friends and acquaintances to ensure there will not be a single drawing room open to you in the kingdom.”
“I shall take care not to be alone with Lady Louisa,” Benedict promised the doughty dowager, seeing little hardship in this and being rather amused by the cheerful threat, which Lady Easher was doubtless capable of carrying out.
“I dare say your company and that of the children will prevent it in any case.”
“There must not be a whisper of impropriety, Your Grace. No notes, no inappropriate story-telling, no unseemly glances. Louisa has no conception at all of men like you and therefore little protection, except for me.”
While agreeing to this without hesitation, the emphasis on such delicacy began to puzzle and intrigue him now.
“How old is she, Lady Esher? I understood from Seraphine that they were the same age but the Duchess of Wexford is six-and-twenty, and Lady Louisa does not seem…”
As he trailed off, Lady Esher sighed.
“My nieces are the same age in years, but not in experience or temperament. Louisa has lived a very sheltered life, both due to our situation and her own natural inclinations.”
“But does she never wish to marry?” Benedict found himself asking as his curiosity got the better of him. “Has she really no suitors? For a lady so comely, six-and-twenty is nothing. In London, she would be besieged.”
Immediately, Benedict felt the tightening of Lady Esher’s hand on his arm and recognized the unwisdom of remarking on Lady Louisa’s physical charms, even politely.
“Perhaps my niece does have a suitor,” the old woman answered very carefully.
“At least, there is an eligible gentleman who has been thinking of making her an offer. It would be a good match, if she accepts him, and perhaps the only proposal she will ever receive, given her retiring nature. I will not have him driven away by even a hint of scandal.”
It was an intriguing explanation.
“Does Lady Louisa favor this suitor?” he enquired and received a further sigh.
“She does not know of him,” Lady Esher admitted. "I thought it best not to raise expectations until he declares himself.”
“I see,” said Benedict again, although he did not.
It all sounded rather silly to him. Either a man should know he wished to marry or not, and a young woman of six-and-twenty ought not to be cosseted like a child.
What on earth was this mysterious undeclared suitor waiting for?
Why did Lady Esher not at least introduce the pair if she really wished the marriage to take place?
Well, it might be ridiculous but it was none of Benedict’s business.
“Lady Esher, you have my solemn promise that I will not compromise your niece or her future expectations in any way,” he told her.
“Whatever you might have read of me, I am a gentleman and do not take advantage of ladies. Frankly, I often prefer it when they take advantage of me, and there is no danger of your niece engaging in that pastime.”
Having strolled around in a circle they were now facing the carriages again and walking back towards them. Their eyes both went to Lady Louisa, crouched down beside Ezra at one of the flower beds and showing him how to smell the blooms without grasping them and pulling them apart.
Lady Esher chuckled at this, taking no offense and seeming now quite satisfied with Benedict’s assurances.
"Excellent. I think we understand one another, Your Grace, and I trust that my niece will be safe in your company. As you note, Louisa is very unlikely to lead anyone astray. She does not know how.”