Читать книгу A Gentleman Of Substance - Deborah Hale, Deborah Hale - Страница 11

As the footman set breakfast before her, Lucy smiled wanly. In the weeks since her wedding, she had come to dread the morning meal. In the first place, her persistent nausea was always at its worst before noon.

She glanced down at her plate, mounded with food. Eggs, bacon, hotcakes, kippered herring, broiled veal kidneys in quantities fit to sustain a grown man at field labour. Lucy averted her eyes, before the sight made her vomit. What she would have given for a modest saucer of dry toast and a cup of weak tea! Somehow she could not bring herself to dictate special requests to Lord Silverthorne’s cook. His cousin kept the kitchen in a constant hop as it was.

“Not indisposed are you, my dear?” asked Lady Phyllipa as Lucy toyed with her breakfast.

“Not at all.” Lucy shoved a forkful of eggs beneath the veal kidney. “I fear my appetite is not equal to Mrs. Maberley’s generous portions.”

“Yes.” Phyllipa laughed. A high-pitched tinkling sound, like a spoon tapping wildly on a wineglass, it often sounded in danger of shattering, “Drake’s cook does consider it her mission in life to fatten everyone up.” She cast her cousin a teasing look. “I doubt she’ll ever succeed with him.”

Drake responded with a derisive grunt as he bolted mouthful after mouthful of his breakfast. Simply watching him made Lucy’s gorge rise.

Pushing her plate away, she tried to work up a smile. “You must find the food and the society here very dull after what you’ve been used to in London, Cousin Phyllipa.”

From the other end of the breakfast table, she marked the black frown Drake directed her way. No doubt he was angry with her for daring to insinuate that his cousins should leave Silverthorne. Well, too bad about him. If he had told her his marriage proposal included a honeymoon with Lady Phyllipa Strickland, she never would have accepted.

“I find nothing wanting in your society, Lucinda dear,” Phyllipa replied in her usual patronizing tone. Evidently, she had not recognized the broad hint. “Though I’ll own I have been pining for London of late. There are so many merry doings in the autumn, particularly if one is as well connected as Drake.”

Lord Silverthorne’s frown deepened into an outright scowl. Obviously, he could not abide -the notion of his boon companion, Lady Phyllipa, departing for the south.

More than once in the past weeks, Lucy had broached the subject. Phyllipa’s answer was always the same.

“I spoke to Drake about my returning home, but he would not hear of it. Protested that you could not spare me so soon. He is counting on me to help mold you into a proper viscountess, and I cannot let him down.after all the dear man has done for me since my poor Clarence died.”

A spark of resentment deep within Lucy began to smolder. She was heartily sick of constant sermons on aristocratic protocol and proper ladylike deportment. As interpreted by Lord Silverthorne and proclaimed by Lady Phyllipa, this consisted of doing a great deal of nothing. At least nothing enjoyable, stimulating or improving. Riding was for hoydens. Reading was for “blue stockings.” Tramping the countryside was entirely beyond the pale. Small wonder Jeremy had joined the army to escape his overbearing brother.

An awkward, expectant silence in the breakfast room recalled Lucy from her musings. Both Drake and Phyllipa were staring at her, waiting. She desperately tried to recall what Phyllipa had been talking about. Evidently she’d been asked a question, but she had no idea what.

“Don’t you agree, my dear?” Phyllipa prompted her.

If they expected her agreement, Lucy was sure it was something she would naturally oppose. Still, she must do her best to conform to their ways. For the sake of her child—the reason she had wed Drake in the first place.

“Of course. I do.” She made every effort to sound sincere, but sincere about what?

Lady Phyllipa spread her thin lips into a tight smile. “You see, Drake? Lucy is as anxious to get down to London as I am.”

Silently Lucy cursed herself. With Drake glowering at her, how could she retract her agreement and explain that she simply hadn’t been paying attention?

“What a welcome you would receive, my dear.” Phyllipa gushed. “Everyone would be avid to meet the new Lady Silverthorne.”

That, thought Lucy, was precisely her fear. She knew just what sort of welcome she would receive at the hands of the ton. Like some pitiful curiosity at the fairground—a dwarf donkey or a three-legged chicken. The vicar’s daughter masquerading as a viscountess. They would watch her like a flock of vultures, ready to rend her to pieces at the first misstep.

Abruptly, Drake rose from his place, hurling down his napkin. “We have been over this before.” He glared at Lucy, his tone icily formal. “I have pressing business matters to attend. I’ve recently bought a mining operation at High Head. The place has been losing money for years, and lately I’ve heard tell of dangerous conditions. I need to get to the bottom of the trouble and set things to—”

“I fear Neville is right about you, Drake.” Phyllipa looked surprised to hear herself agreeing with Neville about anything. “You are overburdened with a sense of ‘noblesse oblige.’ Do you mean to say this great hole in the ground is of more importance than your own wife?”

“Enough!” Though Phyllipa had been speaking, Drake addressed himself to Lucy, with cold loathing in his eyes. “I have business to attend, if you will excuse me. I may not be back in time for dinner this evening.”

Though she struggled to suppress them, tears welled in Lucy’s eyes. She had borne his grim censure for the past four weeks. Together with Phyllipa’s constant carping and her own unrelenting biliousness, she could bear it no longer. The sight of her distress did nothing to soften her austere, exacting husband. With a final look of glacial disdain, he strode from the breakfast room.

“My poor Lucinda.” Phyllipa caught her hand.

For an instant Lucy regretted her resentment of Drake’s cousin. Despite her nagging and condescending airs, at least Phyllipa tried to be sympathetic.

“Don’t worry your head about it. I’ll go talk to Drake.” She set off after him.

He had not gone far when Phyllipa caught up with him.

“Drake Strickland, how could you? We all know you married Lucy for one reason only, but must you flaunt the fact by paying her so little mind? Could you not see how crushed she was by your refusal to take her to London?”

Trying manfully to control his temper, Drake felt his back teeth grinding. The situation was intolerable. Other men had wives who nagged them. His wife enlisted an expert to nag him on her behalf.

“Lucy and I are staying at Silverthorne. If you are so anxious to get home, Phyllipa, by all means, go.” Drake reminded himself that by home, he meant his own town house in London. He had put the place at her disposal after the death of his cousin Clarence.

Phyllipa sighed. “Much as I would love to get back to London, I know my duty, Drake. Lucy is so very attached to me. She depends on me to steer her through these early days in her new position. I could not think of deserting the poor child.”

“My wife is not a child.” She was very much a woman, and Drake wished to heaven he could ignore the fact. “Sooner or later she must learn to manage on her own.”

Phyllipa blinked her eyes in a look of mild reproof. “Only yesterday I mentioned to her how I should like to get back to London before the snow flies. If you could have seen the tears in her eyes as she pleaded with me to stay another fortnight, you would not be so unsympathetic, Drake.”

Another fortnight in the company of Phyllipa and her odious little Reggie? Drake wondered how he would bear it. Mentally he added another item to his tally of grievances against his wife.

“Of course Lucy couldn’t object to my leaving if the two of you came along with us for a visit. That is why I broached the subject. Didn’t you hear how eagerly she greeted the idea? She has never been there, you know, but I can tell how she longs for it. She gets such a sweet wistful look when she talks about spending last winter with her aunt in Bath. Why, only the other day she said to me, ‘Phyllipa, do you suppose Drake is too ashamed to take me out in society?’’’

To cover his acute discomfort, Drake made a few derisive noises deep in his throat. Ashamed? What nonsense!

“It quite broke my heart to hear her,” continued Phyllipa. “I hastened to assure her that nothing could be further from the truth. However, when she learns of your latest answer on the subject, I fear she will take the news very hard.”

Drake suspected his cousin Clarence might have been glad to die and escape this woman’s fretting and badgering.

“Nonetheless, I have made my decision.”

Shaking her head dolorously as she started back for the breakfast room, Phyllipa cast him a reproachful look. Drake chose to ignore it. Beneath the frigid surface of his composure, resentment seethed. If Lucy had cause to complain of their marriage, why did she not speak to him directly, instead of setting her bosom companion, Phyllipa, to hound him?

He gained the entry hall with a mixture of relief and exasperation. Relieved to be making his escape for another day. Exasperated at how his wife and her crony had made him a fugitive from his own home.

“Begging your pardon, sir.”

Drake spun around to find the cook waiting on him, neat as a pin in her starched apron and cap, with every grey hair smoothed into place. A tiny scrap of a woman, somewhat plump from sampling her own good cooking, she’d been the only motherly influence in his life. Drake smiled in spite of himself.

“I am at your service, Mrs. Maberley. What can I do for you this morning?”

“Well, your lordship.” She addressed Drake’s knees, a purplish flush creeping up above her high collar. “I’d be most obliged if you’d start interviewing for a new cook.”

Drake didn’t think he’d heard right. “Surely you’re not giving notice, Mrs. Maberley.” The very idea! “Did I forget to mention how much I enjoyed your seedcake the other night?”

The cook shifted from one foot to another. “Very kind of you to say so, I’m sure, milord. I am giving notice, as soon as you can find a replacement.”

“I couldn’t possibly replace you, Mrs. Maberley. At best I’d get someone to prepare our meals. You have been the heart of Silverthorne for as long as I can recall. How often I used to steal down the back stairs, when I was a little fellow, to find a bit of seedcake or gingerbread for bedtime tuck.”

A nostalgic smile momentarily lit Mrs. Maberley’s motherly features. “You were such a spindly little shaver in them days, Master Drake. A body couldn’t help wanting to fatten you up. You still want filling out,” she added tartly.

“So you won’t desert me…I mean us.” He had a devil of a time over that collective pronoun, Drake mused. Try as he might, he could not think of himself as part of a couple.

Mrs. Maberley shook her head. “It’s been many a year since you were a lad scavenging for a bite at bedtime, Master Drake. And likely you thought me an old woman back then…”

If only Jeremy was here, Drake thought. His charming half brother had always known exactly what people wanted to hear. What’s more, he’d been able to deliver it with an air of candid charm that ensured he always got his way. Though a trenchant observation or a mordant jest slipped easily enough from his own tongue, Drake had never mastered the skill of putting his deepest feelings into words.

“Never,” he protested. “Well, perhaps a little…”

Mrs. Maberley nodded knowingly. “I am getting on in years. Thanks to the handsome wages you pay me, I’ve been able to save a little nest egg to retire on. You need some fresh blood around Silverthorne, to do everything up proper for your new missus.”

Suddenly Drake understood. “Has my wife been giving you any trouble, Mrs. Maberley? Is that why you want to leave?”

“Oh, no, your lordship, not at all. Her ladyship’s a lovely girl.”

“But…?” Drake prompted. He could sense it coming. What airs was the vicar’s daughter giving herself as mistress of Silverthorne?

The cook looked torn between a desire to avoid trouble and a need to voice long-stifled complaints. “It’s just that her ladyship isn’t partial to my cooking. Her plate always comes back to the kitchen hardly touched.”

Drake opened his mouth to explain Lucy’s lack of appetite. Then he shut it again. Was it too early for the symptoms of pregnancy to be appearing, if Lucy had conceived on their wedding night, as they wanted everyone to believe? If it had been a case of equine gestation, he would have known instantly.

“I promise I will speak to her ladyship, Mrs. Maberley. I doubt she meant any intentional insult. Do say you’ll stay on. If you feel the workload is becoming too much, I’ll engage you a battalion of scullery maids.”

“It’s not just her ladyship, milord. There’s Lady Phyllipa and Master Reginald. Always pestering me for special dishes and trays sent up to her room. Complains the boy won’t eat what I give him. Then I catch the young rascal stealing my fresh jam buns out of the pantry. I wouldn’t mind it if he et his supper like a good boy. He don’t need no fattening up, I can tell you.”

“They won’t be staying much longer, Mrs. Maberley,” Drake assured her. One way or the other, he’d have them out by the end of the week. If his wife couldn’t manage without her friend, she could go off to London with them and good riddance.

“I’m sure I don’t want to leave if I don’t have to.”

“And I…that is, we…don’t want you to go. So it’s all settled. If anyone gives you trouble, do as you like with them. Tell Lady Phyllipa to go whistle for her tray. Give Reggie a good smack if you catch him in the pantry. I’ll stand behind you completely.” Drake hoped his cook would mortally offend Phyllipa into leaving Silverthorne posthaste.

The pedestal clock in the entry hall chimed nine. Drake bowed to Mrs. Maberley. “If you will excuse me, I must be off now. Thank you for bringing these matters to my attention.”

Minutes later as he rode away from Silverthorne, Drake added yet another black mark against his wife to the rapidly growing list.

“That man!” Phyllipa chuckled as she reentered the breakfast room. “You mustn’t mind him, Lucinda. He’s been too long a bachelor—that’s his trouble. I can tell what you are thinking, my dear, but it simply isn’t true. Drake is not the least bit ashamed of you. You mustn’t on any account think that is why he refuses to take you to London. What matter your humble origins or your rustic manners? Your beauty and sweetness of temper more than compensate for those deficiencies.”

Ashamed of her? Lucy felt the blood drain from her face, leaving behind a frigid mask. For weeks now, she had tried to follow Lady Phyllipa’s advice and mold herself into the kind of wife a man in his position needed. For her baby’s sake, she owed Lord Silverthorne that much. Had he offered a word of encouragement? Recognized and applauded her efforts?

Hardly. The more strenuously she tried, the more quietly antagonistic he became. She had grown to detest his frosty politeness and his look of silent censure. Now to discover he was ashamed of her. If her husband had returned to the breakfast room at that moment, Lucy would have throttled him!

If she stayed a moment longer, she feared she might throttie Lady Phyllipa in her cousin’s place. “Please excuse me, Cousin Phyllipa.” Lucy pushed away from the table. “I feel the urgent need of fresh air. I believe 1 will take a walk.”

“Not to visit those common people in the village, I hope,” Phyllipa cautioned. “What would the viscount think of his wife consorting with those so far below her new station?”

Of all the strictures imposed by her position, this rankled Lucy the worst. She longed to stop by Mrs. Sowerby’s cottage for a talk or drop in for tea at the vicarage. Apart from Sunday matins, she’d scarcely seen her father since her marriage. She’d invited him to Silverthorne of course, but Phyllipa made them both feel so ill at ease. In recent weeks, he’d begun to turn down her invitations on various pretexts. Perhaps it was just as well, thought Lucy. Though she didn’t want her father to worry on her account, she was hardpressed to keep up the pretense that all was well in her new life.

“I don’t plan on going into Nicholthwait.” Lucy strained to keep her tone civil. “I only mean to stroll in the garden and sit under the great elm.”

Phyllipa squinted in the direction of the windows. “The weather does look unusually clement. Perhaps I shall join you in the garden this morning. Get a taste of this fresh air and see if I can fathom why you and Drake are so addicted to it…”

Lucy heard no more, for she was out the door before Lady Phyllipa finished speaking.

Returning to her bedchamber to fetch a shawl, Lucy deliberately took a roundabout route. In the main gallery of the east wing, she paused for a moment beneath a portrait of Jeremy Strickland, aged sixteen. Even then, his features had shown the promise of manly beauty. The artist had managed to capture that engaging light in his eyes. Lucy almost fancied he was looking out at her from the painting, knowing she was carrying his child, understanding how much she still loved him.

How hopeless her love had seemed when he was a poised and handsome young man of sixteen and she, a timid, graceless adolescent adoring him from a worshipful distance. She had lived for his school holidays, gazing raptly at him in church every Sunday morning, prowling the fringes of the estate praying for a glimpse of him. Year after year.

Then one day, long after she had stopped hoping for it, the miracle had happened. She had not even heard he was home. Hurrying back to the vicarage from picking wildflowers, she’d collided with Captain Strickland on a wooded path by the lake. He had called her by name, and for the first time, he had truly looked at her.

“There you are, ma’am.” The housemaid’s voice shattered Lucy’s bittersweet reverie. “Lady Phyllipa’s looking for you.”

Lucy touched a finger to her lips. “You haven’t seen hide nor hair of me, Mary. Is that clear?”

The girl raised her eyebrows knowingly. “Odd. Could’ve sworn I saw her ladyship. Must’ve been a shadow.” She glanced up at the portrait of Jeremy. “What an awful shame about poor Captain Strickland. We so miss his high spirits around here.”

Feeling her eyes begin to sting in an ominous fashion, Lucy turned away without another word. She now understood why Jeremy had chafed under the tyranny of his formidable brother. She must stand up to this unfeeling despot and she must do it now. Otherwise she and her child might never know a moment’s unfettered happiness.