Loving Lady Marcia Read online

  His chest tightened when he looked at his son. You’d have been my legitimate son and heir.

  If only.

  And then full of a regret he made sure not to show, he accidentally on purpose created an exit beneath his arm so his captive could wriggle out.

  When Joe was free, he laughed in triumph. “You can’t get me,” he told his parent with a great deal of pride. “I’m strong. And fast.”

  But then he caught sight of his new circus animals, turned his back on Duncan, squatted, and began to play with them. “I’ve got to see to it that they’re fed,” he said over his shoulder. “The elephants are hungry, and the lion wants to eat them. One of my toy soldiers will have to fight him.”

  You’re going to be trouble.

  Duncan’s guilt was overwhelmed by a love so strong, he was amazed he was capable of it. He stood, his hands on his hips, reveling in the boy’s enjoyment of his gift. Turning four today hadn’t changed Joe in the least.

  It is I who have changed, Duncan thought. Utterly and completely.

  He saw that the servants had gathered at the door. “The whole family’s here, my boy,” he told Joe, “so it’s time for a song.” He walked to the pianoforte, lifted the tail of his coat, and sat down.

  A rustle of some skirts and some thumps of boots, and the makeshift family was inside the room. Joe sat amid them all on the carpet, grinning from ear to ear.

  Duncan made a sweeping motion with his fingers down the keys of the pianoforte, paused a moment, then hit a crashing major chord: “I once knew a boy named Joe…”

  He thought quickly as he played a few playful notes. “I mean to say, JosephHenryAugustusLattimore, the fourth…”

  Which made everyone laugh.

  He proceeded to invent a funny song about Joe and an elephant and a wicked lion whom Joe tamed with sweets, some of which managed to fall out of Duncan’s pockets as he played.

  After which everyone clapped, Joe, especially, his mouth bulging with a piece of toffee. And Duncan played for another hour, song after song after song. Ruby, the cook, was an excellent soprano, and Warren-the-valet’s lower register was so low, the windows rattled when he sang. The maids played “Ring Around the Rosie,” with Joe over and over until he lay down on the rug and fell asleep.

  The banging on the piano never woke him, and when they were done, Duncan read two chapters from Gulliver’s Travels. The servants watched raptly as he walked about the room reading, acting out all the parts with different voices and the occasional flourish or flinch, scowl or chest-thumping, depending on the action.

  And when he was done, Margaret woke Joe, and Ruby fed him a meal of a roasted chicken drumstick and potatoes and peas in the kitchen, where he had his own special table and chair, just his size. He hated to eat in the nursery, so Duncan didn’t make him. Afterward, Aislinn walked with him upstairs to play games again for another hour, then to hear a story, bathe, and dress for bed.

  When Duncan went in to kiss the boy good night, Joe grabbed his hand. “Papa, why don’t I have a mother?” he asked him from beneath his coverlet. “Perhaps she lives in a great shoe. I’d like her to tuck me in tonight.”

  He’d never said such a thing before, had never seemed to notice his lack of mother. He’d seemed perfectly content with Aislinn and all the women of the house.

  Duncan looked quickly at the maid, whose face was frozen in concern, and kept his smile in place. “Aislinn does a fine job of tucking you in, does she not?”

  Joe merely stared at him.

  “And I love you very much,” Duncan told him. “It’s why I come to kiss you good night.” He did just that, kissing Joe’s forehead. “Would you like another story? I can tell you one about a knight and a dragon.”

  “I’m tired.” The boy blinked and yawned. And then he rolled over and closed his eyes.

  Thank God.

  Out in the hallway, Aislinn waited. “I’m so sorry,” she said in her gentle Irish accent. “I read him the Mother Goose rhyme about the old woman who lived in a shoe.”

  Her face flushed.

  “No. You’re doing a fine job.” Duncan meant it, but the glow of the evening was gone. “He was bound to ask sometime.”

  Joe would only get older and more clever, and someday he would learn the truth, that his mother had died in childbirth. And that he was born out of wedlock, a fact which most people would hold against him.

  He’s too young to suffer, Duncan thought as he slowly descended the stairs. It was his great sorrow, that Joe would suffer at all. He wished he could take it all away.

  But he has me, he reminded himself, and stopped to grip the banister. He always went back to that moment on the gangplank, when he’d made an irrevocable decision.

  You did it for Joe.

  For Joe.

  Because Finn hadn’t wanted him.

  A kind tenant farmer and his wife—the ones who’d moved to Australia from Duncan’s country estate in Kent—had wanted Joe, though, hadn’t they? If Duncan had placed him in the hands of the gnarled old nurse he’d hired to carry Joe across the world to them, the boy would have had a suitable mother and father and no one whispering about his less-than-proper origins.

  Duncan eyed the opulence of his surroundings—the tapestry on the wall, the thick carpet beneath his feet, the marble stair rail—and was reminded that earls don’t waste time over what-ifs. They act. They do. They stand by their decisions.

  A boy could do worse than have a rich and titled papa who loved him very much and would never, ever let him live anywhere else but with him, wherever he made his home.

  And with that thought to comfort him, the Earl of Chadwick resolutely whistled his way down the stairs, only to see a fashionably dressed masculine figure in his drawing room, facing the fire. He instantly recognized the self-assured stance.

  No, he thought at the most primitive level, and remembered that Joe was asleep upstairs. He stood so that he intentionally blocked the doorway. “What the devil are you doing here?”

  His brother Finn turned to face him, compelling amber eyes gleaming with wry amusement. “I’m home, Duncan. And I’m not going back.” He grinned. “God, it’s good to see you.”

  Chapter Five

  That night, Marcia dreamed a long, elaborate dream. She was through the front door of the school, her eyes on a drab black vehicle that was waiting to take her away. Someone pushed her toward it, and without looking back, she ripped open the door of the hired hack and pulled herself in, collapsing on the floor, her bag squashed beneath her.

  “Go!” she yelled to the dream driver between sobs. “Please, go!”

  “But where to, miss?” the driver called back.

  For a second, she had no idea. And then she realized she had no choice. “To London,” she called, her voice thin. “To Grosvenor Square.”

  In her dream, the carriage lurched forward, and she refused to look back. She couldn’t think about the fact that her world had been ripped out from under her yet again.

  She’d go back to the people and the place she’d avoided as much as possible since she’d lost her virginity—and her pride—to Finnian Lattimore.

  She’d go home.

  Home to the House of Brady.

  When she opened her eyes the next morning, she realized with a great shock that she was already there.

  Mama had sent the maid who’d accompanied her from the school back to Surrey in the coach that had brought them to London. And she’d laid one of Janice’s gowns on a chair next to Marcia’s bed. A new maid—the sweet-faced one, who was named Kerry—helped her get ready for the day.

  At the dressing table was a vase of peonies and a book of Shakespearean sonnets Mama must have provided Marcia as a comfort.

  But all they did was remind her of the weeds and spindly flowers in motley vases decorating every available level spot in her office at Oak Hall, and the preponderance of drawings and poems—varying from the primitive, from her younger girls, to quite sophisticated, from the older gir
ls—lining her walls there.

  Oh, dear God, yesterday had been horrible. But as Kerry brushed her hair, Marcia realized that she wasn’t sad. Her mood was more like the bright red tapestry hanging on the hall outside her bedchamber door.

  She was seething.

  How were her girls? And the teachers? Of course, the staff, under Deborah’s guidance, would know how to keep the vast ship sailing, no matter the crisis. But she’d never imagined the crisis would be her dismissal.

  What if they needed her? There was the assembly today. Several prospective parents were coming. Would they sense tension? Would one of the younger girls start bawling in the middle of the program because Marcia wasn’t there?

  She’d spent a half hour each day this past week walking the littlest ones through their steps around the stage, reminding them how to properly curtsy.

  Who knew what was going on this very moment at Oak Hall?

  All Marcia knew for sure—right now—was that she’d been through a serious crisis once before and intended to deal with this one differently. She wouldn’t be passive. She wouldn’t spend time pitying herself. She’d fight to get her position back.

  But she’d have to be careful going about it.

  “Are you all right, my lady?” Kerry asked her softly.

  “I’m much better today, thank you.” Marcia managed a small smile. The red-cheeked girl hovering over her seemed genuinely concerned. “Actually, Kerry, I hope we’ll become friends while I’m here.”

  The maid smiled shyly back. “Thank you, my lady.” And then her brows shot up. “Wait. While you’re here? Aren’t you here for good—that is, until you marry?”

  Marcia looked steadily at her in the glass. “I don’t know,” she said, and paused. “Can I trust you to keep a confidence?”

  The maid gave a vigorous nod. “I swear you can.”

  “Good. I might need an ally in the house. Because the truth is, I want to return to Oak Hall.”

  It felt good to say it out loud.

  “You do?”

  “Yes.” Marcia realized why she’d felt no sense of euphoria—no feeling of vindication—after she’d seen Lord Chadwick. It was because her plan to show Duncan Lattimore and the world that she was happy on her own had had unexpected, wonderful consequences: She was fulfilled. And now—

  She wanted that feeling back.

  Kerry began to work on pinning her hair. In the mirror, Marcia enjoyed watching the girl’s absorbed expression and her light, deft fingers.

  “Every day, I got to witness wonderful things happen all around me,” Marcia said wistfully. “In the girls. The teaching staff. And in the people who cook, clean, garden, and run the stables.” She smiled. “It’s a delightful world, Kerry. We’re an enormous family. And when things go wrong, I get to work on solutions.”

  “I suspect you’d be good at that,” the maid said with a grin.

  “Thank you.” Marcia toyed with the pages of the poetry book. “There’s nothing I like better at Oak Hall than turning sadness to smiles, even if it’s only to give a little girl a hug when she skins her knee. And if it’s something bigger, if someone feels despair about something”—she couldn’t help wincing, thinking about her own despair—“I like to give them hope.” She swallowed hard. “It’s important work. I miss being part of it.”

  Kerry paused, her hands holding a long blond lock of Marcia’s hair. “It’s very important work, my lady. I admire you for taking it on, and I’m sad for you”—she hesitated—“that you’re no longer there.”

  “Well,” Marcia replied briskly. “Every day I’m here I want to speak with you about the school and my plans for it. All right? Even if I appear to be all about parties and beaus with my sisters.”

  “I won’t let you forget.” Kerry’s tone was earnest, almost stern.

  “I already know you won’t,” Marcia told her. “And thank you in advance for being willing to listen. I’ll feel less … undone.”

  “It’s my pleasure, Lady Marcia.” The maid’s smile was serene.

  She reminded Marcia a bit of Deborah.

  In the breakfast room, Daddy stirred his tea and looked at her with unusually somber blue eyes. “It’s good to have you back here with me in the mornings, missy,” he said in his satiny brogue.

  “I’m glad to be with you, Daddy.” And she meant that.

  He set his spoon down. “I know what happened hurts deeply, but remember that you can’t allow anything to defeat you. Take another day to feel sad, but then put it behind you.”

  “Don’t worry.” She sliced into a broiled tomato. “I already have. I’ve got plans this morning.”

  “Is that so?”

  She nodded, chewing. “It’s been ages since I’ve been to London. I’d like to see the Tower.”

  Although truthfully, she was pondering ways to get around Lysandra, who was clever and cruel, which made her a dangerous foe.

  But she’s no match for me, Marcia thought as she stirred sugar into her tea, took a sip of the scalding hot liquid, and tried to appear every inch a lady resigned to her fate. She couldn’t take it too far, however, or Daddy would suspect she was up to something. She’d never been particularly docile and mustn’t look so now.

  “The Tower’s a popular attraction,” he said. “But are you sure you wouldn’t like to go to the museum instead? They’ve some pretty paintings of flowers your mother enjoyed seeing last week.”

  Marcia put down her fork. “This might seem a juvenile way to count my blessings, but I need a stark reminder of how lucky I am. The Tower, with its grim history, will remind me.”

  She wasn’t locked in a tower. She had a second chance … to do anything she wanted.

  “Besides,” she went on, “I’d like to look at the Crown jewels. They’ve outlasted all the people who’ve worn them, which is a good lesson about pride, isn’t it? Mine certainly took a wallop yesterday.”

  “You’re a clever girl.” Daddy eyed her with approval. “And after the Tower, you’ll come home and play something soothing on the pianoforte. Or paint. Or write a poem. A long, sad, lyrical poem, the Irish kind. It will exorcise any remaining demons.” He popped a piece of egg in his mouth and chewed with gusto.

  “I’ve thought of that, too,” Marcia said. “But I believe I’d prefer to work in the back garden.”

  He leaned toward her and whispered, “Yanking out weeds by the roots is good for the soul. You can imagine it’s Lady Ennis’s hair. And my climbing roses may need some pruning, too.” He chuckled heartily. “We’ll sharpen the shears for ye, darlin.’”

  “Thank you, Daddy.” Marcia allowed herself a giggle. Daddy always became very Irish when he was worked up over something.

  Now he slapped a light hand on the table. “Marcia, my girl?”

  “Yes, Daddy?”

  “You’re your mother’s daughter. You’ve shown me this morning that beneath that sweet countenance is a warrior if there ever was one.”

  Marcia smiled. “I’m glad you think so.”

  “Of course,” he said slowly, his gaze shrewd, “a clever warrior knows when one battle is over and the other begun.”

  Marcia blinked. Did Daddy know what she had planned? She did her best to look the dutiful daughter, which meant she said nothing and sipped gently at her tea.

  The silence grew thick.

  And then suddenly Daddy pushed back his chair, came over to her, and kissed the top of her head. “You know of what I speak, silent as you are. Yesterday, you lost the battle to stay headmistress. Today you can wring your hands, if you so choose, but tomorrow you’ll put the school behind you and take on London society. Janice and Peter are off to Vauxhall tonight with friends. We’ve no idea what Gregory’s planned yet, but your mother and I would like nothing better than to take you with us to the Livingstons’ ball.”

  Trolling for a husband on the dreaded marriage mart—that was where Daddy and Mama wanted her. And by the end of the Season, they’d expect her to be engaged.

&nbs
p; Marcia swallowed. “I don’t think I’m quite ready for that,” she said in a thin but firm voice. “But thank you, Daddy.”

  She’d never be ready. Not that she would confess. At least not yet. She was hoping her parents would deduce that fact on their own. It wasn’t very sporting of her, perhaps, but if other women were allowed to slip into spinsterhood, why couldn’t she?

  Daddy patted her shoulder. “Perhaps Lord and Lady Davis’s card party would be more amenable then. Their gatherings tend to be dull, but I can tell my secretary to send round a note that we’ll attend that instead and send our regrets to the Livingstons.”

  “I—I don’t think so, Daddy. If you don’t mind.” She gave him a tentative smile.

  “All right. I’ll understand this time.” His tone was gently chiding. “But I won’t much longer. And that”—he put his ring finger on the side of his nose and winked at her—“is a fact. A fact you’ll do well to remember.” He grinned and pointed that finger right at her, as if she were ten years old, not twenty.

  “Yes, Daddy.” She forced herself to smile again.

  He laughed out loud, a hearty laugh.

  But that was Daddy. He still meant what he said.

  Chapter Six

  Marcia was relieved when Janice and Cynthia came into the breakfast room, their faces freshly scrubbed and their gowns light and pretty. Daddy told them how lovely his three girls were—almost as lovely as their mother—and kissed them all good-bye, making the discussion about the card party thankfully moot, at least for the time being.

  Janice, eighteen, green-eyed, with shimmering blond tresses similar to Marcia’s, pulled out the chair across from her. “Kerry woke us up early. She said you’re feeling better, and we’re to go to the Tower with you.” She bit her lower lip. “I’m so sorry about what happened.”

  “Me, too,” piped up Cynthia. She was the most golden haired of them all, and at age fourteen-almost-fifteen looked the most like Mama. “But I must admit, I’m glad to have you back. I love you, Marcia, and if they don’t appreciate you at that school, then I hate it on your behalf.”