Love Among the Spices Page 6

  The distress of these thoughts led him to close the volume, almost spilling his bottle of ink as he set aside his pen. “The fortune does not matter,” he whispered to himself. “But I would wish–I would wish for something more than the law or army to my name. A path for myself away from the rise and fall of society.”

  Neither money nor title would satisfy him, but any other life was denied by the sheer chance of birth. The son of a gentleman was not meant to risk himself in fields of labor, nor stake his name upon rewards waiting in unknown places. An explorer whose fortune was in a sackful of beetles from a faraway land–what member of genteel society would understand such glory?

  For a moment, he half-believed Marianne Stuart would, when he imagined the young girl in the forest, gazing at the dragonfly in the box as if it were a rare jewel of the Orient. Surely it was not the same girl who accused him of forging a friendship with her over Sir Edward Stuart’s improved connections?

  Perhaps he could persuade her that his concern was only that of a gentleman guilty in his forward manner, not a mercenary figure who addressed her for her position’s sake. If he saw more of her in society ... but what figure did he paint in society, he reminded himself. That of a younger son whose addresses might be equally scorned by her better relations.

  Fingers raking through his short hair, he attempted to banish these thoughts from his mind with the comfort of having behaved properly towards her with his apologies. After a moment, he succeeded enough to take up his pen again and continue with the journal description of the termite’s dwelling.

  Had he known of Marianne’s experiences upon leaving him in the shop, however, his mind would not be quite so at ease with regards to young Miss Stuart’s interest in renewing their acquaintance.

  *****

  Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s insistence that her niece be taken home by carriage had met with little success; for Marianne had insisted upon walking home.

  “But it look like rain,” objected her aunt. “Come, you had better take the carriage. What would Sir Edward say if you caught your death of cold traipsing about in this weather?”

  “He would say I ought to walk more often for my health,” answered Marianne, who remembered to check her tongue only after this statement. “What I mean is, Papa prefers for me to walk in the Park, for there is so little air and exercise in London otherwise.”

  Her aunt was not entirely persuaded, but Marianne insisted. She had reason to regret her choice, however, for the dark clouds which threatened rain cast a downpour upon the pleasant walkways in the Park shortly after she set out upon them.

  Her bonnet was soaked, water streaming down its ribbons and the shoulders of her spencer–no doubt ruining them in the eyes of Mrs. Fitzwilliam, Marianne reflected ruefully. Ducking beneath the branches of a shade tree, she was inspecting the damage at close range when something else caught her eye. A tuft of straw carefully shaped into a bowl, as if woven like a basket from natural materials and those of man’s design, including scarlet threads from an article of clothing.

  A birds’s nest–a splendid one far better than Marianne currently possessed. There was no bird upon it, no flutter of wings about in the tree, meaning it was untenanted by any wildlife. Casting a quick glance around her at the vacant pathway, Marianne hiked up her skirt and placed on foot upon a convenient knob on the tree’s trunk.

  It was a smooth surface of glossy bark, but a few knots and former branch stubs provided enough foot and hand holds for Marianne to draw herself upwards. ‘Tis a stroke of fortune that I did not wear my pelisse this afternoon, she thought, recalling the restrictive nature of the elegant long jacket her sister had presented her as a gift–an article whose ruin would most certainly attract the notice of Sir Edward.

  Her fingers grasped the branch as her free hand gently disentangled the nest from the surrounding bark. Her foot slipped slightly, her breath catching in her throat as she tightened her grip and remained fixed upon the task.

  The nest lifted free from the branch at the same moment as Marianne’s foot parted ways with the tree knot. Her downward plunge was slowed by grasping a branch–but she discovered the next trial in her predicament by this measure. Her jacket was now snagged on a protruding piece of stout bark, dangling her above the ground by a foot or so like an unfortunate puppet.

  With a slight grunt, Marianne felt for a new foothold. Dropping her prize was not an option entertained by her mind, although it afforded the quickest means of freeing herself. Thoughts of humiliation had not entered her mind, either, as she tucked the nest against her bodice long enough to reach for a new handhold and pull herself free.

  Her jacket was released with a suddenness that sent her plunging towards the ground again. The nest tumbled and her fingers closed around it to prevent it falling even as a strong pair of arms closed around her figure.

  She believed herself imagining things at first, as her boots touched the soft earth only to find no impact except that her body resting against a damp jacket, a pair of arms in regimental red holding her securely. Over her shoulder, a lean brown face surveyed her with a mixture of concern and good humor.

  “Are you quite safe?” he asked.

  Marianne nodded. “I am,” she answered. Her first concern was for the bird’s nest in her hand, which, at a glance, had suffered no harm. The arms holding her upright released her gently.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I was careless, I fear. I did not realize how sudden my descent.”

  “Was your prize worth it?” he asked. “For I see the nestlings have gone so you will have no songbirds for your effort.” In the bowl of the nest, a few bits of blue shell were visible, one speckled half intact despite its jagged edges.

  “I did not wish the birds–but their shells are so pretty. I am glad they are left behind.” Her finger stirred them carefully.

  His smile grew wider, revealing an open, pleasant countenance when Marianne glanced up at him. Youthful features dominated by a pair of dark eyes brimming with humor, a tangle of unruly curls half-hidden beneath an officer’s hat, which he removed at once as if recalling his manners.

  A blush appeared on Marianne’s face. “I am sorry for the trouble I have given you,” she continued, lamely.

  “Captain William Lindley,” he said, with a bow. “At your service, Ma’am.”

  “Miss Stuart,” she answered. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.” For once, the frank Marianne did not extend her hand in overly-intimate fashion, engaging in a brief curtsey before this stranger.

  “Might I have the pleasure of walking along with you?” he asked, offering his arm. “I would be happy to escort you if you do not mind the impropriety of our meeting.”

  “Oh, I–that is, I do not–I would very much like that,” answered Marianne, her thoughts still attempting to assemble themselves between propriety and gratitude. “Only we musn’t, you know. We do not know each other properly.” This speech surprised her as it emerged from her lips, as if someone else had expressed such conventional hesitation.

  His smile suggested he found her reply humorous, although he did not laugh. “Of course,” he answered. “Then I must bid you good-day, Miss Stuart.” With a final glance at the bird nest in her hand, he bowed and continued on the path as Marianne stood by.

  “Why, Miss Marianne, your face is fiery red–have you been out in this damp weather without cover?” demanded an overly-concerned Madge upon the return of her young mistress. With no governess and no lady close by to concern herself with the young Stuart daughter, the good housekeeper had grown accustomed to thinking of Marianne as a motherless child in need of watching.

  “I’m quite well, Madge,” Marianne answered. “Only a little damp, that is all.” The redness in her cheeks was not from the rain, but from something quite different. A feeling foreign to Marianne’s mind as the birds’ nest in her hand was nothing more than a wretched importer of disease to the mind of Madge and housemaid Letty.

  Until now, Marianne’s admiration for
the military had limited itself to the accounts of Cromwell and the Crown, the actions of Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo, the life of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great. An ordinary regimental uniform and a formation of soldiers en route to their encampment had piqued her spirit of adventure, but it was not quite the same as she brief feeling she experienced when the young captain caught her in the midst of her fall.

  It gave Marianne something quite new to reflect upon as she sat in her room amidst the sketches of butterflies and the bird’s nest upon her bedside table.

  Chapter Seven

  The weeks following the end of autumn and announcing the inevitable Season had been dreary for Marianne. Her exile at Evering House due to her aunt’s lingering cold, allowed her to avoid the despised teas and dinner parties of society–but also any other public place after Sir Edward decreed his daughter’s health was not what he would wish.

  The affliction which caused the roses in Marianne’s cheeks was not a cold consuming her robust health, but something quite different; Sir Edward did not know the difference, however, and so Marianne was confined to gazing through the drawing room windows as she pined for the parks and even a visit to the shops.

  “But Papa, I am well,” she argued. “It is only Madge who thinks I am listless. See? I am as well as ever and quite eager to go outside again.” She presented her best possible figure in an afternoon gown and velvet bonnet, the proper attire for a young lady visiting the shops–or the park, if one suspected Marianne of harboring such curiosity about its visitors.

  She was the picture of health, but Sir Edward frowned in spite of Marianne’s energy. “I am unmoved in this matter, Marianne,” he said. “A little rest will do you good. It is far too damp for the shops or the park without a carriage, and I cannot spare Martin and the horses today.” And thus, the excuses continued as the frost of winter appeared on the panes of Evering House.

  But London in winter is a busy London–and before the month of December had passed, the city was stirring with signs that its most elegant citizens would return for the session of Parliament. Houses were opened, furniture engaged, whispers of parties and the reception rooms at Almack’s began to circulate with the speed and officiousness of calling cards.

  Sir Edward’s married daughter Lady Flora Easton seldom spent a whole Season in London anymore, since the young Lord Easton professed himself much attached to his country estate and Lady Flora was not as enamored with the charms of being an elegant lady in society as people believed. Nevertheless, Roger arranged for his townhouse to be opened a few weeks after Christmas, with himself and his family following a week afterward.

  The eldest Stuart daughter was no longer a blooming girl of three-and-twenty, but a comely matron whose elegant gown and cap befitted her station as the mistress of a fine country estate and mother of four. The little affair of the advice book was all but forgotten by her father in the wake of her marriage–but perhaps not as forgotten by its authoress as he would have preferred.

  The sight of Roger’s carriage arriving at Evering’s door on Tuesday sent Marianne downstairs with the speed of a bounding deer. “They have come, Papa!” she shouted. “They are here!” She was bustling towards the door eagerly, narrowly escaping a collision with the housekeeper Madge as she answered the bell.

  “Miss Marianne!” she scolded, but the words were lost in the flurry of greetings which followed. Three children wrapping themselves around Marianne eagerly as Flora yielded her cape to the housekeeper’s charge.

  “Flora, my dear,” Sir Edward grasped his daughter’s hand tightly. “And Roger–how good it is to have you both in London again.”

  “You are not looking well, Papa,” Flora scolded. “You are tired; I can see it in the little lines along your forehead. You have spent too many hours in London drawing rooms.”

  “Ah, but Marianne,” said Roger, with a smile in the direction of his sister-in-law, “Marianne makes up for his lack of fresh air and sunshine, as we see.” Marianne’s cheeks were particularly bright as she hoisted her youngest nephew into her arms and spun around to make him giggle with dizziness.

  “Yes, well, Miss Marianne must make do with less sunshine in the future,” grumbled Sir Edward. “Come, ring the bell for tea, Marianne.” His good humor was restored in a moment as his eldest granddaughter clamored to be lifted up to examine his watch.

  Flora glanced at her sister during these remarks by Sir Edward, but said nothing immediately. The sometimes-impatient Miss Stuart of long ago had given way to a woman of more patience, possessed of the delicacy her little book of rules once stressed for young ladies seeking proposals.

  After tea, Marianne led the way for her nephews and niece to romp in the garden, a maneuver which received no objection from Sir Edward despite the frozen layers upon the ground and stone which had given him pause these last few weeks.

  Seated in his library, his youngest granddaughter cradled close, he cleared his throat. “I should warn you, Flora, that your aunt will wish to speak to you while you are here. On the subject of Marianne, as if you cannot guess the matter yourself.”

  “Am I to assume that Marianne’s debut is not as promising as Mrs. Fitzwilliam had hoped?” enquired Flora. She stood near the windows, gazing at the sight of her younger sister at play, dark hair filled with frosted crystals from a handful of snow deposited there by her mischievous nephew.

  Sir Edward sighed. “It is more than her objections, I suppose,” he said. “Even I am concerned–you know that mastering Marianne’s willful nature has been trying, to say the least. She has your stubborn nature and the Stuart pride–unfortunately, not the pride of a genteel young lady on the subject of her family’s name.”

  “I was guilty of the same crime once, Papa,” Flora reminded him. “It came to nothing in the end, as you will recall. For am I not a proper lady in society, possessed of good manners and a good marriage?”

  Something in the playful innocence of her tone might have given Sir Edward pause, if his mind was not too concerned with the subject at hand to notice. “It is not the same,” he objected. “You took every care to preserve our name; besides which, your interest lay in averting hardships which were foreseeable, given my limited fortune.” He cleared his throat with a loud harrumph, for the subject of his meager possession was ever painful in its relation to his children.

  “But Marianne’s is something else altogether,” he continued, after a moment. “It is as if she will not grow up beyond this nonsense of insects and climbing trees and the like. And now that her debut is as at hand, Mrs. Fitzwilliam will hear of nothing but balls for a girl who would rather run about in shortened skirts, it would seem.”

  Flora moved closer and pressed his hand. “I will speak to her,” she said, “if it would ease your mind. But you know that it is unlikely that Marianne will be moved. I fear society simply does not suit her.”

  “Since it is her place, she must make do,” her father snapped. “I won’t have her reduced to whispers in the drawing rooms of our neighbors. There is nothing for it, since she has the misfortune to be born among the gentry.”

  “She does not mean it as an affront to you, Papa,” Flora soothed. “It is not the existence of fortune, I think, which bothers Marianne. Only the conformities of society. Having to give up the subjects which she most loves. It is a great hardship to be a woman in society sometimes, for there is very little freedom, you know.”

  “I would not crush any pursuit of Marianne’s which was proper,” Sir Edward interjected. “I do not mind the insects as much as the tree climbing. If she but took a little trouble in her behavior and appearance I would not be concerned at all.” His voice deepened with gruffness, dying away as the infant in his arms stirred and reached her small hand upwards from beneath her lacy little sleeve.

  Flora said nothing in reply. Her gaze was fixed upon her sister’s laughing face, the snow glinting in her hair like jewels as she swung her young niece in a circle of ring ’round the rosie.
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  She waited another day to call upon her aunt. The good woman was at home, busy delivering instructions with regards to the menu for dinner and the need to have her best gown mended before the upcoming ball in Lord Sanford’s residence. With neither Lord Easton nor her great-great nephew and nieces to trouble her, the good woman did not delay in broaching the topic which most concerned her.

  “I am glad you have come,” Mrs. Fitzwilliam said, pressing Flora’s hand. “I feared it would be too late if you delayed until the next month.”

  “Too late for what, dear aunt?” asked Flora, puzzled. “Lady Easton hosts an abundance of card parties and dances each year, so we should hardly fear missing the first slow month or so of the Season–and you know Lord Easton cares very little for anything besides the concerts and the exhibitions.”

  “For Marianne, my dear, for Marianne,” said Mrs. Fitzwilliam. “I have no cares about it for myself, I assure you, but her behavior is not what a proper young lady ought to be in society. It will affect her chances unless someone persuades her to remedy it.”

  “Whatever can you mean?” said Flora. “In Marianne’s letters, there has been nothing out of the ordinary, except the usual mention of plants and birds–”

  “Exactly,” said Mrs. Fitzwilliam. “See? It is worse than anything, Marianne’s wild ways–worse than if she had taken up racing carriages or writing novels.”

  A dark blush suffused Flora’s cheek at this inadvertent reference to her own past. “I believe Marianne has been so little in elegant society that no permanent damage has been done,” she answered. “Are you not fearful of the worst without reason to expect it, Ma’am? Marianne has not even ventured forth to a card party, much less faced the perils of a dance card.”

  “She has been seen climbing trees, Flora, dear,” said Mrs. Fitzwilliam. “Now, what do you think of that? Moreover,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “there are stories circulating that she was seen in the Park speaking with a young man. And there is no young man of Sir Edward’s acquaintance who could possibly be suspect of detaining Miss Marianne in such a place.”