“I believe,” his lordship said, “I would prefer to wed Miss Campbell.Notthat I have any immediate intentions of marrying anyone. But Jeannette is at least from my world. She was my friend long before I made my fortune and even longer before I inherited a title I never coveted. The only trouble is—oh, deuce take it, the trouble is she is afriend.”
“And therefore is quite ineligible as a wife,” Ralph Milchip said.
“Miss Campbell who is keeping house for her brother here?” the viscount asked. “Your associate’s daughter from Canada, Gerard?”
Yes. When Robert Campbell had wanted to send his son to London to replace the agent there who was returning to Montreal, he had suggested that the older, more experienced Gerard Percy, a partner in the company, go with him for a year or so. And Jeannette had been eager to accompany her brother. The Campbells had not known at that time that Gerard Percy was also the Earl of Wanstead. He had heard the news himself only the week before when the first boat to come from England following the spring breakup of the ice in the St. Lawrence River had brought mail. By that time he had held the title for almost a year—his cousin Gilbert had died the summer before, and presumably Gilbert’s younger brother had predeceased him. Gerard had not heard of Rodney’s death, but then why should he? There had been no communication between him and Thornwood Hall since he left England.
“Jeannette would certainly be a wise choice,” the earl said. “She knows the sort of life she would be going back to.”
“You positively intend then, Wanstead, to return to Canada?” Ralph Milchip asked. “Despite the change in your status? I can remember how eager you were to go there years ago in the hope of making your fortune. But your situation was different then.”
The earl shrugged and exerted himself sufficiently to sit forward in order to poke the fire into renewed life.
“What is there to stay for?” he asked. “Thornwood Hall is well run. I had the steward up for a few days and looked over all the books with him. I am not needed there. I came over just for a year, to set Andrew Campbell on his feet here, so to speak. He is already doing well enough without me.”
But in truth, he thought, matters were not quite as simple as he had expected when he had agreed to come to England. His title had seemed an empty thing, an embarrassment even, when he was still in Montreal. Here he had come to realize more clearly that he was now a part of the very fabric of the upper classes. He had even begun to feel, however reluctantly, that perhaps there were responsibilities he should assume—being an active landowner, for example; taking his seat in the Upper House, for example; begetting an heir, for example.
“What you should do, Wanstead,” John Cannadine said— he had slipped even farther into his chair so that seated across from. him, all one saw was a pair of stout legs and a tousled head, “is choose a bride. Get all the possibles together and make a sensible choice. You will not regret it.”
Viscount Luttrell chuckled. “Parade ’em all in Hyde Park, Wanstead,” he said. “Drill ’em like a company of recruits. And then pick the best one. The mind boggles.”
“Or gather them all at Thornwood,” the Earl of Wanstead said, listening to his own voice rather as if it proceeded from someone else’s mouth. “See which one I like best. Or if I like any of them. Or if they like me, for that matter.”
There was something dreadfully wrong with his suggestion, he thought even as he made it. He had agreed to come to England. He had hadnointention of going to Thornwood. He hated the place.
“I say,” Ralph Milchip said, “a house party. Is that what you mean, Gerard? Are we invited? I have always wanted to set eyes on the place, I must confess.”
“A house party?” the viscount said more dubiously. “In the winter? Definitely not a good idea, old chap. Unless you were to make it aChristmashouse party, of course.”
“That is exactly what I mean,” the earl said, yawning. What the deuce time was it? What was he suggesting now? A Christmas house party at Thornwood?
“Splendid!” John Cannadine said. “Laura’s parents are in Italy for the winter, and mine are too far away for us to travel given the present delicate state of Laura’s health— and the children are always obnoxiously restless during long journeys. Thornwood would be just the thing, Wanstead. Are you serious?”
“Do you hear me laughing?” the earl asked.
His friends all left together less than half an hour later. But a great deal of damage had been done in the interim. Irretrievable damage, the earl feared as he wended his way to bed. He was going down to Thornwood after all, it seemed. For Christmas. He was giving a house party there. Several guests had already been invited, either first- or secondhand. There were the Cannadines, children included, Luttrell, the Milchips—Ralph had declared that Sir Michael and Lady Milchip, his parents, would be delighted by an invitation, as would his younger brother and sister. And among the four of them—or more accurately, among three of them since the earl himself had contributed little—they had drawn up a list of guests to be invited that would fill Thornwood to the rafters.
There was no reason he should not go there, the earl thought. It was his property. It made sense to go down there and look it over and meet his neighbors at least once before he returned to Montreal. It would be the civilized thing to do. And going there would give him something to do over Christmas. He had been rather bored, truth to tell, since Andrew Campbell, only four-and-twenty years old and ambitious to rise in the ranks of the company, was anxious to show everyone that he did not need to have an older partner overseeing his work.
And perhaps heshouldgive some consideration to marrying. Not that he felt any burning duty to beget heirs. He had not been brought up to expect Thornwood or the title to be his—his father had been a younger son, and his uncle had had two sons of his own, Gilbert two years older than he, and Rodney one year younger. But it was true that he felt a certain squeamishness about engaging the services of whores or even about setting up a mistress. And yet he had needs that sometimes gnawed at him by day and kept him awake by night.
Hosting a Christmas house party at Thornwood was perhaps after all a very good idea, despite the fact that it had come to him on the spur of the moment. Or had it, indeed, come to him at all? He had a suspicion that it might have been suggested to him. He frowned as his valet helped him off with his form-fitting coat and began to brush it lovingly before hanging it up. Had he been talked into doing something that he had no wish to do?
He remembered then with painful clarity why in fact it was not a good idea at all, why he had no wish to go back to Thornwood—ever.
He would have to inform his friends tomorrow morning, before they began to spread the word, that there was to be no house party after all.
He looked about him, shivering, after he had stripped off his waistcoat and shirt. He reached for the nightshirt that had been set out for him, and pulled it hastily over his head.
But why should there not be a house party? Was he afraid to go to Thornwood? Was that what had kept him from there even though he had been in England for almost three months? Was he really afraid? The idea, when it was brought consciously to mind, seemed absurd. But there was only one way to prove that he was not.
He would write to Thornwood first thing in the morning, he decided, to give notice of his intended visit. He would go down as soon as all the invitations had been sent out and answered, and he would prepare for his guests himself.
The three occupants of the drawing room sat close to the fire. It was built high and crackled cheerfully, but it had a large space to heat. The candles had already been lit although it was only early evening. But it was mid-December, a time of year when darkness fell almost before afternoon was out. The two ladies who sat on either side of the hearth stitched away at their embroidery, their heads bent to the task, one gray-haired and wearing a white lace cap, the other dark-haired and black-capped. The youngest of the three, who had drawn her chair as close to the blaze as she possibly could, was doing nothing more productive than drumming her fingers impatiently on the arms of her chair.
Dinner was late—an unheard-of occurrence at Thornwood Hall, where punctuality had always been considered a moral virtue. And there was no knowing when it would be served since it awaited the arrival of my lord, and his letter had not stated the exact hour at which my lady might expect him. He had written only to announce that he would arrive today.
Lady Margaret Percy crossed one leg over the other and swung the dangling foot in time with her drumming fingers.
