An Unconventional Courtship

  AN UNCONVENTIONAL COURTSHIP

  Dorothy Mack

  For my parents

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  ALSO BY DOROTHY MACK

  CHAPTER 1

  The small morning room, tastefully decorated in shades of pink ranging from the pale veined marble fireplace surround to the deepest rose colour in the floral chintz hangings at the window, provided a suitable background for its lone occupant, a woman of approximately fifty summers, who was plying her needle, seated in one corner of a settee upholstered in faded rose-pink damask. Like her surroundings, the lady’s beauty had been dimmed by the passage of time without any corresponding lessening of her charm. It shone forth in the sweet serenity of her expression as she bent over her embroidery. There was one other unfortunate similarity with the room’s decor at present: the tip of the lady’s nose matched in tint the small rose quartz carvings scattered about the room on tabletops, and presently she laid aside her stitchery to extract a handkerchief from the pocket of her lilac muslin gown. She blew her nose defiantly and cleared her throat before replacing the handkerchief and resuming her labours. This pathetic ritual, augmented by an occasional cough, was repeated several times in the next fifteen minutes, giving clear evidence that the lady was the victim of a summer cold.

  She raised apathetic blue eyes as a discreet knock announced the entrance of her butler.

  “You have a caller, my lady.”

  “I told you to deny me to all visitors today, Murgatroyd. I’m in no case to be socializing with my throat as scratchy as a bale of hay.” A touch of fretfulness marred the sweet husky tones.

  “It’s Lord Altern, my lady.” The butler smiled paternally as eagerness replaced apathy in his mistress’s eyes. “I was sure you would want to see him, though he begged me not to disturb you if you weren’t feeling quite the thing.”

  “Why did you not say it was Jason at once? Send him up and bring up a bottle of the best Burgundy.”

  “Very good, my lady.”

  “And, Murgatroyd, bring two glasses!”

  This last command was issued to an empty doorway through which the soft-footed butler had retreated.

  In the next instant, the doorframe was filled by a broad-shouldered man in a well-fitting coat of olive-green superfine whose bearing and air proclaimed him a Corinthian. He crossed the room in long strides, meeting the lady who had risen to greet him and raising her extended hands to his lips.

  “What’s this, Aunt Bess, under the weather on the first really lovely day of summer?” The words were lightly spoken, but there was sharp assessment in the keen grey eyes beneath straight black brows as the gentleman eased his relation back into the settee before seating himself beside her. A paroxysm of coughing interrupted her first attempts at speech, causing the concern in his eyes to deepen, but eventually she denied any serious malady in slightly hoarsened tones.

  “It’s just a head cold, Jason, with all the usual annoying symptoms.”

  “The slightly pink-rimmed effect about eyes and nose gives you the appearance of a particularly fetching rabbit, love,” the gentleman teased with a twinkle that warmed steel-grey eyes.

  “It is remarks like that one that make me glad I denied myself to company today,” retorted his aunt, trying without success to fix a stern aspect upon her gentle features. “Visitors are supposed to cheer an invalid, not depress her spirits still further with insulting comments on her ruined looks.”

  Lord Altern grinned unrepentantly. “I did say a fetching rabbit, love. When Mrs. Hatcherby told me you had cried off from her musical soiree last night due to illness, I feared I would be unable to say goodbye to you before I left town. I only went there in the expectation of seeing you, and was subsequently trapped into listening to the worst caterwauling it has ever been my misfortune to hear under the guise of music. It was an hour and a half before I could effect an escape. Where does she find these so-called artists?”

  His aunt ignored this highly critical review, having noticed for the first time the buckskin breeches that signified imminent travel. “Where are you going, Jason? I wasn’t aware that you had formed the intention of leaving town so soon.”

  The entrance of the butler at that moment bearing a silver salver containing a bottle and two glasses prevented Lord Altern from replying. He made room for the tray on the mahogany tea table in front of the settee. “Thank you, Murgatroyd. I’ll pour,” he said easily.

  “Very good, sir.”

  Lord Altern’s eyes returned from watching the butler’s stately exit to the two goblets on the tray, one of which was already filled with a semi-colourless liquid. His black brows rose. “What’s in this glass, lemonade?”

  Lady Pendleston sighed. “Most probably. That’s the price one pays for employing servants who have known one from the cradle. Murgatroyd and Mrs. Caldor conspire to dose me according to their lights whenever I suffer the least indisposition. I distinctly requested the best Burgundy and two glasses. This is how they obey me.” She gestured to the lemonade. “That stuff hurts my throat.”

  “Then don’t drink it. I’ll prescribe for you.” Jason picked up the glass of lemonade and walked over to the window, where he proceeded to dump the contents into a decorative potted palm tree. “To your swift return to health,” he offered a minute later when they had each taken up a glass of Burgundy.

  “To your safe journey,” replied his aunt with a smile. She took a sip of the wine before repeating her earlier question. “Where are you off to, Jason? Brighton? I had not realized you planned to leave town quite so soon.”

  “Nor had I.” Lord Altern hesitated a second before fixing his relative with a quizzical look. “Will it cheer you up, I wonder, to hear that I may be about to follow your oft-repeated advice?”

  The expectant gleam in his aunt’s blue eyes changed to comprehension, then to quiet satisfaction. “Jason, you are engaged to be married at last. My dear, I am so happy. May I be the first to wish you joy? Who is the girl? I have not heard any talk —”

  “Whoa there, Aunt Bess, not so fast,” her nephew pleaded with a laugh. “Your felicitations are premature at this juncture. I am not betrothed yet.”

  Lady Pendleston clasped her hands together in front of her bosom. Her laugh was as young and gay as a girl’s. “I had begun to fear that like Lord Byron, you felt that ‘though women are angels, yet wedlock’s the devil.’ I was beginning to despair of your ever finding a woman you would want to marry.”

  “‘Oh how many torments lie in the small circle of a wedding ring!’ On that subject, Cibber is the equal of Byron.” Jason chuckled, capping her quotation. The humour faded from his eyes as he continued soberly, “That I would marry eventually was never an issue, Aunt. I never denied that Marcus’ death made it incumbent upon me to carry on the line. I hope I know what is owing to my name.”

  “And almost any girl in the kingdom would be yours for the asking,” his aunt inserted, happily expectant. She was not prepared for the bleak expression that settled over Jason’s usually inscrutable features.

  “Yes,” he agreed harshly. “At one stroke I was deprived of my brother and best friend, and in return I gained estates, titles, and the opprobrious distinction of being considered a prize on the marriage mart.”
He thrust himself off the settee in a spurt of bitter feeling.

  Lady Pendleston followed his pacing form with sympathetic eyes. “I know how close you boys were,” she said softly. “I miss Marcus too. His loss is a wound that resists the healing properties of time. That is one of the reasons I have been so eager for you to marry. The close companionship of a wife will go a long way toward easing the burden of your loss.”

  Jason had been staring moodily out the window. His aunt saw the hand at his side clench before he relaxed the fingers and turned to face her, all expression wiped from his face. “From what I have observed of marriage among my friends and acquaintances, I would be a fool to look to wedlock for companionship, Aunt Bess. Oh, women have their uses — and their numerous charms,” he added quickly, after noting the stricken look that leapt into her eyes, “but I have never apprehended that a talent for companionship is among ’em. Their whole aim is to get themselves married advantageously, and when the business is accomplished, they lose interest in the source of their position and concern themselves with that alone, and sometimes, if they are of a maternal bent, with their children.”

  “You were very young when Pendleston died, but I don’t believe I flatter myself when I claim ours was a true friendship as well as a happy marriage.”

  “But you are a paragon among women, Aunt. I cannot hope to find your equal today.”

  The sweet-faced woman smiled obediently at such blatant flattery, designed, she was aware, to make her forget the harsh sentiments her usually reticent nephew had just expressed, but her eyes remained serious and her heart trembled for his happiness.

  “Nonsense, I am nothing out of the common style,” she denied. “There are dozens of females I could name of superior understanding and good heart who would make a man an unexceptionable wife.”

  “Ah, but you forget the prime consideration: beauty,” Jason argued, producing an exaggerated leer. “Unless all these virtues are allied to some appreciable degree of beauty of person, alas, they pass unnoticed by most members of my sex.”

  “I’ve presented a number of lovely girls to you over the past two years,” Lady Pendleston declared indignantly. “You’ve flirted briefly with the bolder ones and entirely ignored the shy ones.”

  “There’s no pleasing some men,” her nephew agreed with cheerful insouciance. He came back to the settee and picked up his glass, once more the urbane man of the world.

  His aunt regarded him with a perplexed pucker between her light-brown brows. “Were you just funning then when you intimated that you were about to become betrothed?”

  “No.” Jason concentrated his attention on the contents of his glass for an instant as he settled back onto the settee, his long legs encased in gleaming Hessian boots extended under the tea table. A rueful smile lurked in the opaque depths of his eyes when he again turned toward the woman regarding him with patent affection. “We have wandered from the purpose of my call, which was to take my leave of you before heading for Sussex.”

  “So you are going to Brighton?”

  “Eventually. My immediate destination is Bramble Hall, an estate located about a dozen or so miles from Brighton, where I have been invited to make a visit.”

  “The light dawns!” A mischievous smile drifted across Lady Pendleston’s lips. She tipped her head in its cap of the finest pleated lawn, and the expression on her unlined face was so roguish as to give the lie to the strands of silver among the fair curls peeping out from under the pretty cap. “Would I be in danger of losing my fortune if I wagered that there is a marriageable daughter at Bramble Hall?”

  “You would indeed.” Lord Altern took pity on the disappointment that clouded her eyes. “It’s a granddaughter.”

  “Ah! Who is she, Jason? Would I have met her?” Lady Pendleston asked eagerly.

  “Her name is Emerald Hardwicke. You may have seen her. She is one of the incomparables of this past season.”

  “I know her mother, Lady Henley, a pretty, flighty woman, given to vapours and imaginary ailments. I’ve seen the girl at balls, but she has never been presented to me. A diamond of the first water indubitably, but isn’t she rather young for you?”

  “I’m not exactly in my dotage at thirty,” protested her nephew.

  “No, of course not, my dear one.” Lady Pendleston reached over and patted his knee in fond apology. “It’s just that I would have supposed a young woman of wider interests who had already acquired a little town polish would be more to your taste than a dewy bud.”

  “I wouldn’t call Miss Hardwicke dewy precisely,” Jason said with what his aunt would have termed a reminiscent smile. “She’s nineteen, a bit older than the usual deb, owing to the fact that the family was still in mourning for her father last year, and she handles her court with all the assurance of an accredited beauty.”

  “Is her portion large?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Jason replied coolly. “The father died all to pieces, I understand, which is why the family now resides with the old earl at Bramble Hall. The viscount’s estate was let to pay debts. I’m not sure whether his heir has even reached his majority yet.”

  “I see. I recollect now that Henley had the reputation of a gambler.”

  “Even with no more than a token dowry, Emerald Hardwicke has had her pick of the eligibles this season. She has already refused Tavistock, Covington, and Mablethorpe, among others, and has always a score of young cubs languishing at her feet. It takes superior address to get near her at all,” Lord Altern admitted with a self-mocking twist of his lips.

  “Two barons and a viscount, all with comfortable fortunes, if rumour be true,” murmured his aunt. “Out for bigger game, obviously.”

  “Tsk, tsk, Best of my Aunts,” challenged the man, pouring himself another glass of wine. “That remark was uncharacteristically feline.”

  Rosy colour flooded her cheeks. “It was indeed,” she said contritely, “and I do beg your pardon, Jason. I know nothing of the girl to warrant such a harsh judgment.”

  “Tavistock and Mablethorpe are both several years older than I, and Covington is a young ass without an idea in his head beyond hunting.”

  “It’s not surprising that none of them touched her heart,” agreed Lady Pendleston, eager to make amends. “She’ll not be able to resist you,” she predicted, nodding confidently.

  Jason laughed in real amusement. “I know where to come for a character at least, though it could well be argued that such blatant partiality renders you blind to my many defects and perhaps equally incapable of recognizing my few virtues.”

  “What is Miss Hardwicke like?” inquired his doting aunt, refusing to be baited.

  There was a thoughtful little pause before Lord Altern said slowly, “I don’t really know her well as yet. For some reason or other, we did not meet until a fortnight ago. Her beauty is so blinding it robs a man of judgment. She has a lovely singing voice that she uses to advantage, a delightful smile, and, I daresay, all the usual affectations expected of a reigning beauty.”

  Intent blue eyes read indulgence in his face but nothing more substantial. “Do you —” A sudden coughing spasm choked off her voice. When it subsided, she took a restorative sip of her wine at her nephew’s bidding before asking, “Do you intend to offer for Miss Hardwicke, Jason?”

  “If, on closer acquaintance, I see nothing in her character to disgust me, nothing that would render her ineligible to be the wife of someone in my position, yes.”

  A slight tremor passed through Lady Pendleston’s body in the wake of this unloverlike remark, but she maintained the smile on her lips. “You know all I ever wanted was your happiness, my dear. If it lies in Miss Hardwicke’s hands, I promise I shall love her as a daughter.”

  “Thank you, Best of my Aunts.”

  “I would be more gratified by that endearment, Jason, if I did not have the distinction of being your only aunt,” she retorted dryly, accepting his lead in banishing sentimentality. There followed a few moments devoted to
family details and bringing each other up to date on summer plans, but all too soon Lord Altern rose and said on a note of apology, “I am sorry to have to run away so soon, Aunt Bess, but I must take my departure if I am to arrive at Bramble Hall in good time for dinner. I imagine they keep country hours.” He pulled her out of her seat and walked with her to the door of the apartment, where he raised first one small hand and then the other to his lips. “Goodbye, my dear, take care of that cold.”

  “Jason, stay a moment!” The little pleat that had appeared between her brows smoothed away, and she looked up at him eagerly. “That name, Bramble Hall, has been teasing away at my memory since the first time you mentioned it, and at last I have made the connection. I am certain that is the place where my goddaughter has been residing these past few years since her mother died. I don’t believe you ever knew my school friend, Philippa Cartwright, who married a man named Latham against her family’s wishes. He was a good, kind individual but without fortune or position. Philippa and I rather lost touch, as they lived a fairly retired life until she was widowed. When Cleone replied to my letter of condolence, she told me a maternal great-uncle had offered her a home in Sussex. I send her a little remembrance on her birthday each year, and I am persuaded it is addressed to Bramble Hall. She must be a connection to your Miss Hardwicke.”

  “Bramble Hall is the seat of the Earl of Brestwick, who is Miss Hardwicke’s grandfather.”

  “Then Cleone and Miss Hardwicke must be cousins — second cousins, I would assume. You must carry my fondest love to my goddaughter, Jason. I have only met her once or twice since she has grown up, but she is a dear girl, very like her mother, who was blessed with a kind heart and great good sense as well as a sweet disposition. She writes me very comfortable letters without a word of complaint, but I would be grateful for a first-hand report on her circumstances from you.”

  “Your wish is my command, Aunt Bess. I shall check up on your chick,” promised Lord Altern. “And now I must go.”