Miss Harvey's Horribly Lovable Fiancé: Four Weddings and a Frolic Read online

  He headed for the Hall.

  “I say, Lord Northington!”

  He paused and looked back down the lane.

  Winston, Earl of Dalworthy, called to him. Beside him was a man he’d met only briefly years ago when both of them were quite young. A striking fellow with dark blue eyes and brown hair highlighted by being much too long in the sun. What was his name? Lindsey? Lawton?

  Dalworthy hurried up to him. “Good to see you here, Northington. Allow me to introduce my friend, Lord Lawton-Bridges. A neighbor of mine in the country and a war hero.”

  The fellow put out his hand. “Bridges, please, shorter is best.”

  “In the service, were you?” He applauded men who had put their blood on the lines in duty to their country.

  “Captain, Royal Engineers. I only recently have come to the family title and estate. A new challenge for me, I daresay, to attempt to manage land instead of change its topography.”

  “I’d say you and your fellow officers proved you do that extremely well, Bridges.”

  He inclined his head in compliment. “I realize you may have just arrived and have much on your mind with your wedding tomorrow, but hopefully you have a few minutes to talk business. Dalworthy and I have a topic we’d like to discuss with you.”

  “Please do.” He welcomed the diversion. “I don’t know how logical I can be.”

  Bridges smiled. “Marriage deserves contemplation.”

  “Doesn’t it, though! I must return to the house and speak with Esme, but do enlighten me as to your topic.”

  “We will all walk together then,” Bridges said. “What Dalworthy and I wish to discuss is land.”

  “Near both Bridges’ and my estate,” Dalworthy added.

  “If you wish advice on planting, I tell you, gentlemen, I am not the best farmer to ask for advice.”

  Bridges shook his head. “Well, sir, we are less inclined to talk planting and more about improvement.”

  Giles took interest. “Tell me, please.”

  “Your father owns a slip of land along the river near our homes and estates. We’d like to improve the entire length,” said Dalworthy. “Bridges here has an idea to improve the flow and the embankment to save our tenants from floods.”

  “A parcel of land that my father owns? Which?”

  “A slice along the River Ouse,” said Bridges. “If it is in the entail, we must have permission from your father to improve it. And we understand you make recommendations to him about such ventures.”

  “I do indeed.” He had often advised his father of opportunities to develop his land and his income. More often than not, the duke did not take them. But because Giles was the heir and those conditions were ones he could inherit sooner or later, he considered it incumbent upon him to advise his sire of such matters.

  He envisioned the Ouse riverside. He’d last visited the plot the summer of ’twelve after a severe flood. “Only four or five tenants live on our portion. Why are you interested in it?”

  Dalworthy looked pained. “I have tenants nearby.”

  “So do I,” said Bridges. “At minimum, I see potential for shoring up both sides of the river bank, ending the flooding. If we three could agree to fund such a project, the best solution would be to build a small dam. All our tenants would suffer less with spring rains and summer squalls. As it is, the waters rise and flood their fields out. They starve and die and theirs is a needless, pitiful loss.”

  Giles thought of similar problems he himself had on lands his father owned in York. This project would be a good introduction to undergoing similar changes there. “As an engineer you see the potential in such projects.”

  “I do.”

  Oh, how he could use a dam or two! “I’m interested.”

  Concern fell away from Bridges face.

  “More than interested,” he added. “Might we talk of this in an hour or so? I have an issue I must address.”

  “Of course.” Bridges was happy to let him go.

  “Later this afternoon?” Dalworthy pressed him.

  “Shall we say in an hour? In the library?”

  He was half-way up the main stairs when he halted, struck by a memory. He gripped the bannister and grinned.

  The land along the River Ouse that his father owned was not entailed! It did not convey with the duchy. This meant Giles had options…and an opportunity to sever his ties to his father’s greed and to save the rectitude of his marriage to Esme.

  Chapter 5

  “What are you doing in the estate office?” Giles asked Esme as he and her maid gained the doorway of the large room where her father’s estate manager kept all the records.

  Esme lifted her head, her golden brown curls bobbing in her surprise. She sat behind the broad walnut desk in the servants’ wing off the kitchens. Beneath her hands were spread her father’s ledgers and she had a quill in hand, a long line of figures on a paper to one side. “I promised Papa I would check the monthly receipts and invoices before you and I left tomorrow.”

  He approached, smiling at her, happy to have found her and confide his troubles to her. “Good of you. I hope you will offer me the same courtesy for my own tallies.”

  She smiled but it was tremulous. “If you wish.”

  Usually she offered to do anything for him. Fix his cravat. Hug him. Kiss him. Her words struck him as somehow…conditional. But he was not sure on what. “I’d never burden you with it.”

  Placing her pen down, she sat back. “I wouldn’t call it that. I like to do the numbers. Jane,” she said to her maid, “you may leave us.”

  “But Miss—?”

  “Jane, go. Tomorrow I may be alone with Lord Northington at any time of day.”

  After the girl had fled, Giles extended a hand toward the spare wooden chair before the desk. “May I?”

  “Of course. You spoke with Papa.”

  “I did and—”

  “Aren’t you tired from your early ride? The ball is tonight and you and I are to lead out the second set after my mother and father open the dancing.”

  These words also set him on edge, though he couldn’t tell why. “I must talk with you.”

  A flash of fear darted across her fine features. “Tell me truly. Do you want to marry me?”

  That curt question sounded like such an earnest concern of hers, his heart ached. She didn’t know how he adored her? “Yes, my darling. I do want to do that.”

  “Why?”

  He thought that odd. And it shocked him. “You know why.”

  “No.” She looked away, out the window at the dying sun. “I’m not the best catch of the Season. In fact, I’ve been out far too long. Nearly on the shelf, you know.” She made an ugly face at him, her tongue out. “A spinster.”

  He gave her a rueful face in return.

  She laughed and he relaxed…for a moment. “I’m glad you waited for me to discover you.”

  “Are you?” she asked as if she didn’t quite believe it.

  What was wrong here? Something more desperate than his bad news? “You sound as if you believe you are—”

  “Unworthy of you? Yes. Yes, that could be true. Undeserving and—”

  He was out of his chair, around to hers and raising her by her shoulders to stand in his arms. His lips in her hair, he worried. “You deserve more than me, my sweet.”

  “There is no finer man.”

  If she truly believed that, then what was their problem here? “You compliment me.”

  “And you should not do that for me.”

  That angered him. “Listen to me well. You are sweet perfection. For me, the finest and fairest of them all. A diamond, many say. I do agree. In looks and charm and wit. But then I did not know your name or your sparkling reputation before we met and bantered in that dark parlor. And as for your intellect, it is second to none. Second to no woman I know who happily accounts for her father’s pennies.”

  “Thousands of them.” She sniffed and snuggled against him, as if she held to a
lifeline.

  “Indeed. Hundreds of thousands.” He stroked her hair. Fine, silken, the color of honey, her curls tumbled into his fingers so easily. The way she had tumbled into his heart so readily. So completely. “And as for unworthy?”

  She looked up at him, her large dark eyes a hurt animal’s. His heart wrenched. “I am, you know. I’ve done things.”

  “So have I.”

  “But you’re not ashamed of them.”

  He splayed his fingers into the hair at her nape and held her quite still. “My sweet, what have you done that you are ashamed? Stolen? Cheated? Lied?”

  “Yes! I lied!”

  He shook his head. “When? About what?”

  “At Miss Shipley’s. I would blame other girls for distracting me if I hadn’t finished my work.”

  “I see. How old were you?”

  “That does not matter. It shows character.”

  “Do you still lie?”

  “No. I have no work that I haven’t finished.”

  He shrugged. “Well, there you have it.”

  “You mustn’t make light of this. Suppose I…?”

  “What?” He went blank. “Didn’t finish some work I assigned you?”

  “No, no. Do be serious. What I’m saying is that I have a nasty streak. And you are so…level-headed.”

  “I cannot say that.”

  “You never get angry, Giles.”

  He cradled her close and chuckled. “But I do. If you had seen me yesterday, you would have thought me straight from Hades.”

  “Why? What did you do?”

  “Shouted at my father.”

  “Why? If he does not care to come for the wedding, that may be because he had heard rumors of my hoydenish ways.”

  “Ah, yes.” He tapped the end of her nose. “A raggamuffin girl who trolls the lanes and haunts my dreams.”

  “Do I?” she asked in awe.

  “What do you think?”

  “I want to be that important to you.”

  “Esme,” he whispered. “Tomorrow I shall prove that you are.”

  “And every day thereafter?”

  He stilled, alarmed at her doubt. “Every hour thereafter.”

  She burrowed into his embrace and sighed. “Oh, Giles. I want to be the best wife for you. I tried to prepare myself to be your bride but I doubt I am totally reformed. I apologized to my cousin Fifi, but there are others who think me selfish, greedy. I’ve heard some think my mother controls me.”

  “And yet I’ve heard she did not want you to marry me.”

  She pulled back, searching his face. “I’m sorry. It’s true.”

  “Yet you accepted me.”

  “I did.”

  “So I’d conclude your mother does not control you.” He lifted her chin and looked into her sweet brown eyes. “I must tell you that in many ways, my father controls me.”

  She clutched his waistcoat. “I marry only you, Giles.”

  “What he does, however, affects us. Me. You. He is truly selfish and greedy. Rapacious, more like.”

  “I cannot care as long as he is far away,” she confessed. “He won’t come for the wedding and I am pleased.”

  He brushed the bottom of her lower lip with his thumb. How it tore him to tell her this! “But he has not yet signed the agreement.”

  She stepped back from his embrace. “Why?”

  “He needs money.”

  She swallowed, but eyed him in her canny way. “He’s extorting it from you?”

  “He is.”

  “And? Did you agree to his demands?”

  “No.”

  She inhaled sharply and ran a hand over her brow. “If he refuses to sign, is our marriage legal?”

  “Once we exchange vows and we sign the church register, we are legally wed in the eyes of the church. You will be my wife by all that’s holy and in the eyes of men and women.”

  She spun away. For a long minute she paced before her father’s desk. “But if he does not sign, our wedding is legal but the agreements are not?”

  “Only the agreements between him as representative of the duchy and your father.”

  She whirled toward him, her fine features wild with worry. “But Papa signed already! Didn’t he? I’m most certain he said he had. Oh, Giles!”

  “I spoke with your father a while ago in the village.”

  “You told him this?”

  “Yes. All of it.”

  “And he…? What did he say?”

  “He is not happy.”

  She shook her head. “I must talk with him.”

  “Wait.” He caught her by the arm as she strode for the hall. “Let me tell you this.”

  Wide eyed, she stared at him. “What?”

  “I gave my father a counter proposal.”

  “Oh, Giles, no.”

  “He’s desperate. He will accept.” He usually did. “I expect my solicitor to arrive here tonight with my father’s response.”

  She sagged, as if she lost all her fight. “You cannot give him what he wants. Whatever the amount, you know he will come after you again and again.”

  “I will not lose you, Esme. No matter the price.”

  She stared at him, a mixture of gratitude and sadness written on her lovely face. “I will talk with Papa.”

  She tried to smile but it was a weary undertaking…and then she cupped his jaw and kissed him with all the fire he’d always seen in her.

  Then she threw him a wistful look, excused herself and fled the room.

  Esme hurried up the main stairs to the second floor, then down the hall to her parents’ suite. Her knock at the door produced her father’s valet Nash and the information that her father was still in the village shepherding the guests.

  Her father’s man was a decade older than his master, portlier and increasingly infirm. “He should return soon, Miss Esme.” His voice quivered. “Shall I ask him to attend you?”

  “Please,” she said and froze on the long red Turkey carpet, empty-headed with trepidation. But action was her by-word and she swung around to head down the servants’ stairs.

  The stables would be a fine idea. She could talk to Admiral…or maybe, best not. The horse could offer a nicker of consolation, but no advice. Plus, privacy was an issue. The stables and the carriage house would be teeming with all the guests’ coachmen and footmen. Henry, Giles’s young tiger, would be there too. The wiry French boy was as sharp as a Bow Street Runner. His clear blue eyes saw every detail of one’s attire and expression. Esme had oft applauded the boy’s perspicacity, but this afternoon, she feared it. Worried as she was and without a solution to her dilemma, she didn’t want Henry pilfering about inside her brain.

  At the kitchen door, she stopped.

  Only one other person filled her need for friendship.

  Picking up her skirts, she fled the other way through the beer cellar, the laundry and out the far door.

  Giles checked his time piece, left the office and headed upstairs for the proposed meeting about land along the Ouse. He opened the library doors to note he was the last to arrive. “Forgive me for my lateness, gentlemen.”

  “Northington!” Rory Fletcher hailed him as he strode across the room and embraced him. Rory, the new Earl of Charlton was not only a war hero, but also his cousin. Nearly the same age and much the same temperament, Giles and Rory had met as babes and as they grew, engaged in boyish escapades, fishing, treasure hunting and spying on the local brewer who enjoyed his beer. Because they looked much alike, they often tormented the poor man when in his cups, allowing him to think he saw double.

  His cousin stepped back, a grin wreathing his face. They had not met since almost a year ago near Brussels, when both attended one of Wellington’s staff meetings before the battle of Quatre Bas.

  “I had to dart in before you started your meeting and say hello. I heard from Dalworthy and Bridges here that you arrived earlier. So very good to see you, Northington.”

  “Marvelous to see you well, cousin
. Shall we dispense with the formalities, Rory?” Giles felt the tension of the morning drain. He had feared for his cousin, who served throughout the wars as officer of an infantry regiment. He’d won constant promotions for his leadership. His last rank had been as colonel.

  “Indeed, Giles. I’m happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation. I arrived yesterday. I had to see you married and settled.”

  The twinkle in Rory’s grey eyes told Giles he recalled the trouble they’d often gotten into. “Mischief is no longer part of my name. Nor yours, I wager, now that you have inherited your brother’s responsibilities.”

  “So true I must learn the value of country life quickly.”

  “Not hard, but it does keep you busy,” Giles told him.

  “I will come to you for advice…but only after your honeymoon trip!”

  “Prudent of you!” His reply was more jovial than he felt.

  “On that,” said Rory stepping back, “I will leave you to your deliberations. But I would like to visit with you tonight at the ball, Giles. It’s been much too long for us to reminisce.”

  “I agree. I’d like nothing more.”

  A footman stood to one corner of the room and as the three men took chairs before a goodly fire in the grate, the servant stepped forward to offer wine.

  None of the three accepted so the servant bowed himself away and out the doors, which he closed behind him.

  Giles had thought briefly about Dalworthy’s and Bridges’s proposal. Needing more information before he decided on it, nonetheless he liked it. Of course, he did. Anything that improved life for any and all had always appealed to him. What had he worked for, fought for, lived for if not peace and prosperity for all? He wanted to follow their advice and shore up the river banks and build a dam.

  The problem was his father’s disinclination to spend a penny to benefit others. The man was so far in debt, he needed every cent he could earn, beg or steal to ward off his creditors. Giles knew the pain of that all too well. Especially today on the eve of his wedding and his sire’s obstinate refusal to sign the proper documents for it. If he understood these two men’s proposals correctly, he had a few ideas that might save his own situation. The land the duchy owned along the River Ouse in Kent he knew was not entailed. That meant he could advise his father to sell it. So if the price were right, Brentford would let it go in his next heartbeat.