Chapter 9
It took Miss Pallant no little while to make her way back across the sands to her home, and her pelisse was muddy at the hem and her boots stained with salt by the time she had done so.
Her lovely face was rosy from the exercise and the breeze, and tendrils of gold had come undone and clung to her brow and cheeks.
She heaved open the enormous, heavy front door with ease of long practice, and shrugged the soiled coat off in the cavernous great hall, hanging it in an informal manner upon the newel post, along with several others.
She then threw down her bonnet on a cluttered console table, before making her way to the library, which was her older brother’s peculiar sanctum.
Pallant Manor was an older house than Albery Hall, and considerably more decrepit in appearance; the lack of care here was neither superficial nor recent in date.
There was damp staining the plaster at the corner of the room by the window, and the pungent odour of old books insufficiently cared for pervaded the chamber, which was as untidy and cluttered as the entrance hall.
But there was a cheerful little fire crackling in the grate, despite the season, and Lord Pallant was reading at his leisure in an armchair close by it.
He did not rise when his sister entered, but set aside his book, picked up with one elegant hand a quizzing glass that hung upon a ribbon around his neck, and surveyed her critically through it.
He did not speak; words were scarcely necessary, since his gaze was so eloquent.
She flushed further under his cool regard, but did not challenge him for his incivility.
It was said in the neighbourhood – along with many other things less flattering – that the Pallant family were the handsomest people of any rank or station in life for many miles around.
They were all three of them tall, blond, well made, with chiselled features and striking dark-blue eyes.
Oliver, Lord Pallant, the head of the family at thirty or a little more, was the most impressive in appearance, since he had broad shoulders, a muscular frame, and an air of unquestionable authority despite the careless informality of his dress.
He was very plainly a person to be reckoned with.
Had he not been so light in colouring, he might easily have merited the fashionable description ‘Byronic’; only a lady unaccountably prejudiced against a fair complexion would have denied that he was excessively good-looking.
He might easily, from his bearing, have been a nobleman of the highest rank with vast ancestral estates and a fortune at his back, rather than a baron of precarious standing occupying a crumbling house in the middle of nowhere.
‘I saw them!’ Vivienne said impetuously, when it became clear that he would not speak first.
‘I would assume so,’ her brother rejoined with glacial calm, ‘since you have been gone this age. Are you going to give me your no doubt unreliable impressions of the family, or must I torture it out of you with a hot poker?’ This was not said with anger, or indeed any perceptible emotion at all; impossible to tell if he was joking, though he surely must be.
Miss Pallant, at any rate, obeyed him, sinking into a chair opposite his and launching into impetuous speech.
‘There are three of them – yes, yes, we knew that already, you do not need to tell me so – and an old Scottish chaperon, who I think must once have been their governess; she has that air about her. One of them is perhaps five and twenty or thereabouts, and the other two closer in age to each other, and several years younger. They were not well dressed, wearing drab old mourning several years behind the mode, but then I surprised them before they had a chance to change out of their travelling clothes. They are dark, all of them, hair and eyes both, and handsome enough, in a foreign sort of a way. In that respect, there is little to choose between them, but if you were to ask my opinion – which I know you won’t – the middle daughter, Cecilia, might be the best for your purposes.
She is not at her last prayers by any means, but she has had a London Season or two, I venture, and is therefore not likely to be in the least impressed by Seb’s juvenile posturing or his beaux yeux. ’
‘Whereas the younger one might, you imply.’
She shrugged. ‘Her name is Bianca, she is no more than nineteen, and she has a lively eye, and an impulsive air about her. I imagine she is no less silly and impressionable than all the village chits who swoon over Seb as he thunders by on that ridiculous horse of his.’
‘Would you describe them as ladies? Albery was in trade, so they easily might not be. God knows where they grew up, and in what circumstances.’ He was frowning disdainfully at the thought, and the classical beauty of his face was marred by it.
‘You may judge for yourself in good time, but I would say so. They are no relations of Mr Albery, but of his wife. They told me that their father had an estate in Surrey – I expect it was entailed, because he is dead, I think, and unlike me, they have not been blessed with brothers, which for your purposes is fortunate, of course. Their mother is living but does not accompany them, because she is said not to care for the country; they have three older sisters, all of whom are married with parcels of brats. I imagine their husbands must be men of no particular distinction; nothing to boast of, at any rate, since they did not take the opportunity to tell me of any rank or title. But their manners are good – better than mine, I’m sure – and the governess is a formidable sort of woman we should take notice of, not a timid little grey mouse.
She tried to give me a set-down for my lack of decorum, but I showed her I cared nothing for it.
I thought them promising, on the whole. Certainly, they could have been much worse and I would not have been put off. ’
‘I notice,’ her brother said, stretching out long, well-shaped legs in front of him and absently scrutinising the polish on his top boots, ‘that you say nothing of the oldest sister. One might imagine that someone who has been languishing on the shelf for a good while, as she has at her advanced age, might be more readily susceptible to my undoubted charms.’
‘Or mine,’ she shot back with an odd air of defiance.
He was entirely unshocked, merely raising an eyebrow. ‘Do you think so? Well, in this instance – if in no other – I will bow to your superior knowledge. How fortunate, if it should be so. Yes, promising indeed. You appear to have done well.’
She flushed again, and said eagerly, ‘I was able to warn them about Major Bartrum – you may trust that I did not neglect to mention that he was the old woman’s godson.
No doubt that will raise concerns and make them wary of him, and of his mother.
They will think he must surely have had expectations that they have thwarted.
His extreme unpleasantness should do the rest.’
Oliver smiled derisively. ‘Vivienne, the day I start to worry that Alistair Bartrum might give me competition in the wooing of a woman, whether she is eighteen or eight and forty, will be the day I sail out into the bay and throw myself overboard. I will not admit that he ever could have done so, even dressed in regimentals, and now, of course, the idea is preposterous. My dear sister, I am touched by your desire to help in this aspect of the matter, but it is not necessary, I assure you.’
They heard a commotion in the hall; the outer door had slammed, and a number of dogs were barking wildly inside the house.
Lord Pallant sighed. ‘Here is Sebastian, come to interrogate you and tell you what he would have done better in the circumstances. “Juvenile posturing,” did you say? He is about to treat us to a fine display of it, no doubt. How very tiresome he is. At least he is pretty, and looks well in the saddle; I see little other merit in him. Unlike you, he cannot even claim to be obedient.’
The library door opened a fraction, and Lord Pallant raised his voice a little to say, ‘Sirrah, you know perfectly well that I will not endure having those ill-trained animals in here. Choose your company, oaf, and learn better manners.’
The door closed, and after a few moments of noisy chaos outside, opened again in silence; the third Pallant entered, having presumably shut his too-lively pets away somewhere in the meantime.
He was just as handsome as his older siblings, but his face had a petulant cast which theirs did not share, and showed clearly that he was about to embark on some complaint or other about how he was ill-used.
A glance at his brother’s set countenance made him think better, and instead, he said hungrily, ‘Viv, you have gone to see them without me, which I must think was a missed opportunity! But I know Oliver disagreed, so I will say no more about it. Tell me, what were they like? Are any of them well favoured? I hope they are not bracket-faced; it will be the poorest go if they are.’
‘They are all three of them personable enough, but only the youngest is of an age that makes her suitable for your attentions,’ Vivienne said, with a sly glance at Oliver.
‘Her name is Bianca Constantine, and she has black hair and dark-brown eyes, rather in the Spanish or Italian style. I do not think you will discover anything much to complain of. She is a fine, bouncing, well-set-up wench, like both her sisters; no delicate fairy creatures they. I did not find her, or any of them, so very well dressed today, but I am sure that they will do better when they are expecting company. They can afford to now, after all. Their previous circumstances were not particularly luxurious, I conjecture, but we need not care for that. They have enough between them now to make us all excessively comfortable.’
His Lordship said drily, ‘I believe the estate is worth something in the region of ￡130,000 or more, not counting the property. That would certainly stave off the most rapacious of our creditors. Not that we need waste the bulk of it on paying tradesmen. Once our new situation became widely known, our lives would become far more agreeable in every respect. Unlimited credit, which is now but a distant memory, would be extended to us once more, and we should be able to indulge your desire for fine horseflesh to the full, as well as mine.’
‘I should hope so,’ Sebastian huffed. ‘I have no great desire to marry, you know, and tie myself forever to some dull chit’s apron strings, even if she is tolerably handsome, but I quite see that it is necessary, given our situation.’
‘It need not materially alter your way of going on,’ his brother told him patiently.
‘Once the girl is won and the ring on her finger, her money will be ours, and you need not trouble overmuch how you treat her. Put a brat or two in her belly and leave her here while you seek more congenial amusements in Town, and you shall hear no criticism from me. But you do need to win her first, Sebastian. This means you will have to restrain your rather uncertain temper for as long as it takes, I do hope you realise. Your current charming habit of saying and doing exactly what you please will have to be set aside for a while.’
Sebastian glowered with quick resentment and said, ‘Curse you, Oliver, I know that! And I could say the same to you, for that matter. Your ordinary high-handed ways won’t serve you if you mean to woo one of the older sisters.
It’ll take more than a handsome face to make her put all her new-found fortune in your hands five minutes after meeting you.
I daresay she’ll be harder work than the maidservants and farmer’s daughters who are your usual prey.
Maybe you’ve lost your touch because they’ve made it too easy for you of late years – well, we’ll see, I suppose. ’
Seeing storm clouds gathering ominously on Oliver’s brow, Vivienne intervened hastily to head off a blistering reproach and an outbreak of unedifying but not unusual fraternal brawling.
‘There is no need to fall to pulling caps,’ she said pacifically.
‘We will all need to be on our best behaviour over the next few weeks and months. Quarrelling amongst ourselves won’t help in the least. We require all their fortune, not a part of it.
My task is the harder, I think, because the pleasant option of marriage and abandonment is not open to me, as it is to you both.
I may well fascinate the elder Miss Constantine and bring her entirely under my power, but who is to say that she will remain there forever? ’
‘That’s true, of course,’ Oliver replied, his attention diverted as she had intended.
‘But let us not forget, my dear sister, that there is always the option of a little friendly blackmail. If at some point in the future, I were to discover that my wickedly sapphic sister-in-law had seduced my own innocent little sister, there is no knowing what I might do or whom I might tell in my shock and outrage, is there?’