Robert felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. “Oh, so you fancy being a marchioness, do you?”
“A duchess, in fact, but there are very few of them to be had.” She chuckled. “A girl must aim high, you know. Of course, it is quite hopeless, I am perfectly aware of it, but I met him, I liked him, so why not? Oh, do not look so horrified. It is a game, that is all. One sees a man of high rank who is amiable and so forth, so one puts oneself in his way to see if anything should come of it.”
He was stupefied. Was she truly as calculating as that? “Must it be a duke? Would no lesser rank do? A baron, say, or a viscount?” He wanted to say‘or an earl’but it might sound too much like a declaration, and he was a long way from that point.
“It must be a duke,” she said, with a quick laugh. Normally, he liked her melodic laugh, but tonight it grated on his ears. “Why should I not set my sights so high?”
“Because—” He stopped. There was no reason at all. She was truly lovely, well mannered, brought up in the nobility andwith a good dowry. She would make an excellent duchess, and Embleton would be lucky to get her.Anyman would be lucky to get her.
“I mean him no harm,” she said softly, laying one gloved hand on Robert’s arm. “I would never try to trick him into it, but he must marry someone, and so must I. All I wanted was to get to know him better, but I have missed him this time.”
He gave an embarrassed laugh. “That was my sisters’ fault. They saw an unmarried future duke, and it went to their heads rather.” He sighed. “Poor Lizzie and Lucy! They are so desperate for husbands that they will try anything.”
“How is it they have never married?”
He sighed again. “Lizzie… she brought it on herself, for she fell in love with a most unsuitable man, a naval man and not of good family. They tried to elope.”
Olivia gasped, for eloping was the worst crime an unmarried female could commit, according to Mama, except for one other which she would not explain, but merely pursed her lips and said that there was a reason for a girl to be chaperoned. But to think that Lady Elizabeth Osborn had eloped! With a sailor!
“Of course, he is a captain now, and probably has prize money and so forth,” Robert said musingly, “but it is a bit late to wonder what might have been. As for Lucy, she had a few offers but she dithered and wavered and could not settle on one, and naturally, there is only so long a man can wait before he goes off and marries someone else.”
“Then such a man cannot have loved her,” she said stoutly. “True love would wait forever.”
That was the confidence of her eighteen years speaking, not yet jaded by the experiences of life. From the perspective of his thirty years, Robert had known many men who had not waited, true love or not. Some had held on for years before deciding that if the ideal woman was not to be had, then one might as wellsettle for a lesser variety. A man had an obligation to his family, his inheritance and to his own happiness to provide himself with a wife, after all.
But he had no wish to be distracted from the main point. “So what will you do now? Go chasing after Lord Embleton, I suppose?”
“Chasing?” she said, with a little grimace. “That sounds so… forceful, as if I had a right to him, and saw him trying to escape. I should like to know him better, that is all. He usually goes to his hunting box in November, and if so, Lady Esther knows one of his neighbours, so we shall go, too.”
“To do some hunting of your own,” he said sourly.
“No, no. For good company, that is all, and to meet old friends.”
He said no more on the subject, for he could not trust himself to stay calm. She made it sound so reasonable, yet it was so calculating and cold. At all costs Embleton must be protected from her!
When he returned to his room that night, he wrote two letters.
‘To the Right Honourable the Viscount Farramont, Stonywell, Nottinghamshire. Monty, my old friend, I am engaged in a silly little game with Izzy’s sister Olivia, and I would be obliged if you would let me know of her movements and destination whenever she leaves Corland Castle. Do not let her know of it, for I should like to surprise her. My regards to Izzy and congratulations on the impending addition to the family. Yours, Kiltarlity.’
“To Godfrey Marsden Esq, Chilford Lodge, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. Marsden, my old friend, are you settled in for the winter now? If you want company, I should be very happy to shoot a few of your birds, since my mother is determined to render Strathinver uninhabitable for severalmonths at least, and who wants to be in town at this season? Do put me out of my misery, and if you are minded for female company, I can bring my mother and sisters, too. Yours, Kiltarlity.’
Then, smiling, he retired to bed, there to beguile a surprising degree of wakefulness with thoughts of shining eyes, a delicate heart-shaped face and an enchanting dimple beside very kissable lips.
6: A Grand Ball
Olivia returned to Corland Castle in unsettled mood. She had enjoyed her brief stay at Harraby Hall, naturally, for lively company was always exciting and Robert Osborn had been amusing, but it had not advanced her objective at all, and now she had to wait a full month before she could move forward. Lord Embleton was staying with a different sister, in Gloucestershire, far from her reach, and only the certainty that he would be at his hunting box in Leicestershire for the whole of November and possibly December too kept her spirits up.
It was fortunate that there were many entertainments to enjoy. Ever since the ghastly murder, the family seemed to have retreated into its shell, hardly venturing out at all, but now there was a positive spate of large gatherings. First, there were the celebrations surrounding the marriage of her eldest brother, Walter. Then, the Cathcarts, not noted for their hospitality as a rule, held a charming little party for Katherine Parish to which all the young people of the district, but none of their parents, were invited. With the wedding of Bea Franklyn toCousin Bertram rapidly approaching, Lady Esther and Aunt Jane seemed to be competing with each other in providing a host of elegant and increasingly ambitious parties, all of which was to culminate in a grand ball at Corland Castle two days before the wedding.
As if this were not enough excitement for Olivia, there was much more of the same to look forward to, since both her remaining two brothers had become betrothed. She did not much care for Eustace’s future wife, Miss Rosamunde Wilkes, although she could not say why. She seemed pleasant enough, but Olivia could not warm to her. Kent’s betrothed, Katherine Parish, she liked well enough. She had thought her dreadfully shy at first, with hardly a word to say for herself, but when she saw how happy she made Kent, and how he managed to bring her out of her shell, she understood that it would work very well.
And then had come the astonishing news that Tess Nicholson had eloped!Eloped!Run off to Scotland to be married over the anvil, as the saying was. And even though it was a respectable, indeed eligible, match, to Lord Tarvin, which everyone approved, and they then went straight to London to be married properly by special licence, it was still an outrageous thing to do. The second worst thing a lady could do, yet everyone seemed pleased about it. “At last, the girl has acquired an ounce of common sense,” Papa said, and even Aunt Alice smiled at it, and wrote at once to give her permission, since Tess was not yet of age. Olivia did not understand it at all, although she was pleased for Cousin Tess, naturally.
But there were unhappy moments, too. The murder investigation was still going on, although Captain Edgerton and his team never seemed to make much progress. A few weeks ago, one of them, Miss Peach, an elderly spinster who had once been governess to Mrs Edgerton, had disappeared, and now her murdered body had been found at a farm near Pickering. Oliviahad not known the lady well, for she had not dined with the family when she had lived at Corland, and so had been rarely seen, but another murder was a dreadful thing, and poor Mrs Edgerton was very upset.
And then there was Papa. He had been so glad to see her when she returned from Harraby Hall, he had hugged her and made her sit beside him at dinner.
“How much we have all missed your lively chatter,” he said over and over. “So dull we have been without you. Do not go away and leave me again, daughter, for I am sadly bereft now. Your mother gone, your sisters far away, and now your brothers… what am I to do without you all? Butyouwill stay with your poor, lonely Papa, will you not?”
