The Bumblebroth Page 6

  William's quick frown, his eyes softening with concern, awoke her to what she had said, and she hastened to amend it. "What . . . I meant, of course, was that I probably would not have met him."

  "Ahhhh. Is that what you meant."

  William's tone was rhetorical, but even so, Mattie had to fight the urge to explain herself further.

  Feeling vulnerable, whether on Pammy's account or her own, she decided that it was time to call a halt to today's lesson. She suggested a return to the house, and was relieved when William did not protest. He seemed so confident, so flexible, as if no matter what twists came his way, he would be assured of winning.

  Perhaps that was what flustered her about him, Mattie decided. That, and not really knowing what he was thinking. A secret gleam often seemed to lurk in his eyes. His smile was so unrevealing. At times, she thought he was laughing at her, but perhaps he was only amused by something else.

  Gerald and Pamela had been talking animatedly while Gerald negotiated the gate, but now he called back, "I say, Will. Lady Pam has had the capital notion of setting up a breeding stud. Could we take her to visit Haverhill's stables?"

  "Might I go, Mattie?" Pamela asked.

  Mattie heard the eagerness in her child's voice, and fear gripped her again. Had Pammy already fallen prey to William's charms?

  "We could discuss it," Mattie said, hoping to delay her decision.

  But William, turning to her with a questioning look, made this impossible. "I should be most happy to conduct Lady Pamela to Lord Haverhill's estate. If she is seriously giving thought to setting up her stud, she would benefit greatly by seeing it. Haverhill might be willing to part with one of his stud's offspring, and she could do much worse."

  When he saw her reluctance, he added, "Gerald will go with us, of course. I don't suppose we could prevent him in any way short of shackling him to the barn."

  Before Mattie could say anything to discourage him, Gerald embarked on a description of the stud's bloodlines, in which the names Eclipse, Herod and the Darley Arabian figured prominently. "You absolutely must see it, Lady Pam."

  Mattie could easily imagine the light that must be shining in Pamela's eyes. She could hear the excitement in her daughter's voice all too clearly.

  As anxious as she was about her daughter's heart, Mattie could do nothing to prevent this particular event. Her very hesitation had as good as committed them.

  "Certainly, she may go," Mattie said, but then she turned to face William and hoped she looked firm. "But if she goes, then, necessarily, so must I."

  "I would not have it any other way," William replied, and she could almost believe the note of sincerity in his voice, which was absurd. He was lounging back against the bench, looking for all the world like the cat who'd got the cream.

  "Pammy is far too young to be undertaking such a project, and far, far too young to go on outings without me."

  "As you say, Mattie." William smiled, and the power of his dark eyes fell upon her.

  Lord have mercy on my poor baby, Mattie thought.

  Chapter Five

  As anxious as she had been about the outing, Mattie was almost sorry to see it end. She had never felt so stimulated, and she began to think that taking the air in an open carriage must be as efficacious as the medical men always said it was.

  Before the gentlemen departed, Lord Westbury named a prospective date for the trip to Haverhill Grange, saying that he would call to confirm it within the sennight. Reflecting on the potential danger to her daughter's heart, Mattie saw in this provision an opportunity to put him off.

  Upon their return, as soon as Pamela had run up to her room to change, Mattie spoke to Barlow. In as discreet a manner as she could manage, she gave him to understand that Pamela must never receive Lord Westbury alone.

  "I perfectly understand, Your Grace. You may trust me to see that the gentleman in question does nothing to disturb your serenity."

  "Thank you, Barlow," Mattie responded, while conceding to herself that William already had. "I think he will soon take the hint. Don't you?"

  "One can always hope, Your Grace." Barlow's lugubrious tone discouraged her from believing anything of the kind. "Although— if you will forgive the presumption— I have noticed that his mother, Lady Westbury, is surprisingly impervious to the discreet inflections one tries to use to achieve such discouragement."

  "Well, we shall hope that her son is less so."

  "As you say, Your Grace."

  Mattie watched him amble off, feeling that her daughter was under siege, and that she herself was the only able-bodied soldier left to defend her.

  Mattie's worry was justified only a few days later when, once again, William appeared in her garden. As on the first occasion, Mattie was wearing one of her outmoded gowns.

  Turner's speed with a needle had been seriously curtailed by the rheumatism in her joints, and none of the gowns Mattie had ordered were ready yet. This muslin had been dug from the very bottom of her bureau, but it was the only suitable clothing she could find. Its skirt was shorter than was fashionable, and it revealed a hint of calf above her stout boots.

  William, polite as he was, gave no sign of noticing her outlandish garb, but Mattie was certain he must be comparing her to the ladies he knew in London.

  "Good morning, Duchess," he said, sweeping off his beaver. "I thought I might find you here. It is a glorious day for gardening, is it not?"

  "So glorious, in fact, that I am astonished to see you here when you might be busy with your own projects." The tartness of her own reply surprised her, but it simply was not fair for him to catch her at a disadvantage again.

  "Oh, you needn't fear for my projects. I was up with the larks."

  Not waiting to be invited, he stretched himself out on the ground to watch her as he had done before.

  "I tried the house, naturally, but your man informed me that neither you nor Lady Pamela was at home."

  Mattie stabbed the earth with her spade. William was proving to be every bit as arrogant as his mother.

  "I am afraid that he did so under my instructions," she informed him.

  A look of comical dismay came over his face. "My most profound apologies if I have offended. I thought we were agreed that I should call to confirm the date of our outing?"

  Mattie flushed, painfully aware of being in the wrong. "I must have forgotten, but I told you before that I am seldom home to visitors."

  "Do you not care for company, Mattie?"

  She avoided his searching look. "I live retired, as you must have guessed. I suppose I prefer my solitude."

  He raised his brows with interest. "And why is that?"

  Mattie shifted uneasily, then attacked a weed with a vicious pull. "I live in the country because I do not like London."

  "Is it the amusements there that you find lacking? Do you have an aversion to the opera or the theatre? I assure you there are more serious pursuits."

  Mattie frowned in an obvious attempt to squelch him. "I do not particularly care for society." She hoped this answer would put an end to his questions once and for all.

  But William persisted on a note of pure scientific enquiry. "I wonder why."

  At such dogged perseverance, Mattie felt her back was to the wall, and she defensively blurted out, "I was not well received."

  Then, in an attempt to shake the pall that had quickly settled upon her, she shrugged. "I suppose one would say that I did not take."

  "You surprise me," William said. His grave tone prompted her to search his face, but he quickly added, "And, it is a pity, for I suppose I shall never see you in Town."

  Mattie stared at him.

  "Or Lady Pamela," he appended.

  "Oh . . ." Mattie spoke airily, trying not to show how the thought of meeting him in society had flustered her. "I daresay you will see us eventually. I want Pammy to have at least one season in London."

  "Do you? And why, may I ask?"

  "Because I am determined that she shall enjoy he
rself amongst the Ton."

  "Even though you did not? How curious."

  Mattie drew in a patient breath. Her breasts rose an inch above her décolletage, before she remembered how tight her dress was and exhaled quickly.

  "Lord Westbury, you must know that I am a widow! I am not supposed to amuse myself!"

  It was his turn to be surprised. "But I thought your bereavement occurred many years ago. Ten— if I am not mistaken. I should think that even the most severe critic could not expect you to mourn longer than that. But perhaps you are speaking of a different person. Did you marry a second time?"

  "Certainly not! When His Grace died, I was far too old for marriage!"

  "How old?" Lord Westbury asked this nonchalantly.

  Mattie coloured. "I was twenty-eight," she said. Then, at once, she regretted answering him, for she knew he was certainly older than that and only now contemplating marriage for the first time. But Lord Westbury, it seemed, could be as relentless as his mother.

  "Not too old to remarry," he said, smiling gently.

  Mattie felt her heart give a tremor.

  Oh, dear! she thought. If he smiles like that at Pammy, how will she ever resist him?

  To hide these thoughts, she returned to her work and refused to respond to his comment.

  William stayed seated, his forearms resting upon his knees. Mattie wondered how much longer he would insist upon waiting for Pamela. If she kept silent, perhaps he would go away.

  "So you have been happy here at Westbury Manor?" he asked eventually.

  "Yes, when I was a child, I always admired this site for a garden."

  "Then you perceived that it had promise. It is much more beautiful now than I remember it."

  Mattie bit her lip. She ought not to have started talking about the property; she could see how much it interested him.

  "Yes, His Grace knew that I wished to live here," she said, hoping her tone would discourage him. "That is why he bequeathed it to Pamela."

  "His Grace?"

  She looked questioningly at him.

  William smiled. "It just seems strange. You've referred to him several times that way. Instead of the usual ways, you know— Upavon . . . the duke . . . my husband. I presume he had a Christian name as well?"

  The colour rose to Mattie's cheeks. "Yes. Of course, I meant my husband. 'His Grace' was simply what everyone called him. When I first came to live with him, I thought that was his Christian name and always used it as such. No one bothered to correct me, and so . . . it lingered." She looked up to find William frowning, his keen gaze trained upon her face.

  She stammered, "I heard the servants calling him that, you see."

  "Yes." The frown was still on his face, making him look rather forbidding. "And how old were you when you married, Mattie?"

  Mattie flushed again and looked away. "I was sixteen."

  William said nothing more on the subject. After a while, he began to ask her questions about the garden and what more she planned to do with it. Mattie thought she ought to resent the questions, suspecting, as she did, his interest in Pamela's dowry, but at least they were less personal than his earlier ones.

  Before she knew it, she found herself relaxing and even laughing from time to time as he showed his complete ignorance of horticulture. She wondered how he had ever had the nerve to tell such a bouncer about his roses!

  When she had finished her work for the morning, he helped her to her feet once again, politely ignoring her soiled gloves. Feeling his gaze upon her, she removed one glove and self-consciously smoothed some of the tendrils of hair back from her face. She knew she looked a fright.

  "Here, let me," he offered.

  For a moment, Mattie thought he meant to arrange her hair, and she retreated from him. But he immediately said, "Hold still."

  So much authority rang in his voice that she found herself obeying, and in the next moment he had extracted a small twig from among the strands.

  "There." He handed it to her with a bow as if it were a posy, and, feeling curiously light-headed, she thanked him with a laugh before bidding him good day.

  * * * *

  On the day of the trip to Haverhill Grange, Lady Westbury bestirred herself rather earlier than usual. She wanted to make certain of speaking to William before he set out.

  She caught him just before he left the house and silently approved his appearance. His drab riding breeches fit him to perfection, as did the cut of an olive green coat. She was grateful to have one thing, at least, not to worry about, in that William always looked well turned out.

  But when she noted that Gerald would be accompanying him again, she remarked irritably, "I am surprised, Westbury, to find you so lacking in forethought. It is not at all the thing to be taking one's younger brother along when one is courting."

  The look William gave her was so bland that she wondered what he was thinking, but then a hint of humour lit his eyes, unsettling her.

  "I appreciate the forcefulness of your argument, Mama, but I had to include Gerald on this occasion because it was he who proposed the outing."

  Lady Westbury relaxed. "Well, I daresay he did it to advance your interests. I am happy to see that one of my sons at least shows a modicum of sense."

  Gerald chose that precise moment to join them and greeted his mother with a dutiful peck upon one cheek.

  Lady Westbury accepted this salute unconsciously, while saying, "You must do what you can to occupy the duchess, Gerald. I know it will be trying for you, but you're a good boy and you know your duty to the family."

  William interceded for his brother, who seemed confused by her instructions. "Never fear, Mama. You may trust Gerald to do exactly what is needed in this situation."

  They took their leave soon after that, so Lady Westbury had nothing to do but see them out with a care to be on their best behaviour. A niggling worry did have her wondering why William had turned so complacent, but she told herself that her constant reminders of his duty as heir had finally paid off.

  It would be surprising, indeed, she said to herself, if after years of her governorship he had not formed some notion of what was due to the Nortons.

  * * * *

  Lady Westbury would have been greatly annoyed later to discover that William had ceded Gerald the driver's seat once again and had placed himself in the rear of the phaeton next to Mattie.

  This surprised Mattie herself, until she reasoned that as the day trip had been concocted by Pamela and Gerald together, Lord Westbury could not very well edge his brother aside. And, she suspected, this would be an opportunity for William to try his hand at bringing her around.

  Hoping to avoid any more embarrassing questions about her own marriage, she directed the conversation onto safer ground. Her complete ignorance of racehorses afforded her an opening topic.

  "You say that Lord Haverhill runs an exemplary stable?" she asked, as Gerald urged the horses to a trot. "What does such an endeavour entail?"

  "It entails a considerable expenditure for one, as Lady Pamela should be made aware before she embarks upon her own programme. The horses themselves are dear, and at any time one might be injured and rendered worthless. Then the care for each runs to some fifty pounds per year."

  "Good gracious! Why?"

  "Every racing horse must have its own stall and groom, as you will see today. It must be fed almost entirely on a diet of oats after the age of three. But these are minor costs to the threat that any one of them might turn out to be a failure and bring less than the cost of a year's feed when sold."

  "Why would any sane person indulge in such a gamble?"

  William smiled. "Ask your daughter or Gerald. This is their excursion, not mine."

  Mattie knew what he meant without needing to hear the spirited conversation going on in the front seat. Pammy must have her horses, as Gerald must, too, she supposed, just as she herself must have her gardening, no matter what the sense of it. The thought that William had already discerned this about her daughte
r at once comforted and dismayed her. It meant that he would know how to lure Pammy all the more surely, but at least, if he did win her, then he would know how to make her happy.

  A thought occurred to Mattie, and she gave voice to it at once, "Then, you are not so passionate about horses yourself?"

  A spark of humour lit his eyes. "I must confess to a greater interest in horses than I have in roses. But no, I am not so much the enthusiast that I want to set up my stud."

  "What interests you then?"

  He shrugged. "Oh, a variety of things. I simply prefer not to be too tied to any one. The true enthusiast has no time for anything outside his principal passion, while I enjoy too many amusements to limit myself. I prefer to enjoy the fruits of an expert's labour to becoming one myself."

  "I see. Then what do you do with your time?"

  He cut her a sideways glance, but a teasing note robbed his words of offense. "Unlike you, Duchess, I do like society in all its absurdity. I enjoy the balls, the opera and the theatre. I go to my club and to the race meetings, or wherever my friends gather, whether it be at Jackson's Boxing Saloon or a house party. If I were to become addicted to any one sport, I would have to forfeit the rest."

  "Oh." Mattie uttered the syllable rather wistfully. She could see that William had much to occupy his time. A man like William, who was handsome, urbane and athletic would be welcome in many settings. He would be at ease in the society that had shunned her.

  "What plays have you seen?" she asked suddenly. If there was one regret she had always had about living as she did, it would be that she had missed visiting the theatre. The notion of seeing great actors on the stage had always fascinated her.

  "Well . . . ." William thought for a moment before indulging her with a description of Edmund Kean's Hamlet.

  Mattie listened as raptly as she had at Miss Fotheringill's knee when Gilly had first read the play to her. "I should love to see Hamlet," she confessed.

  She was instantly afraid that she had opened herself up to further questions about her seclusion, but instead, William embarked on a description of a another play. From there, it was but half a step to describing a costume ball with Venetian masks.