Chapter Five
Grace was glad when they alighted at Bath Spa station and were met by a carriage from the Westbury estate. In another long hour of traveling, she and Everett talked little. Due to her protective “sleep” on the train, they had passed the journey in near silence. She felt a twinge of regret that they already had nothing to say to each other, but quashed it. He was nothing but a gorgeous earl who wanted this six-week farce to save his pride, rather than confess to those around him that he needed a marriage for money.
She wasn’t going to make the mistake of thinking a handsome man would be trustworthy. But having to say she didn’t want to visit Henry was a nail into her chest. She missed the innocent joy of him asking her about the world, then listening enraptured as she showed him how a set of scales worked or taught him his next set of numbers. She would love nothing more than to see her brother. But she was sure she wouldn’t be able to walk away afterward. And if she visited Henry at Rayner’s house, there were plenty of ways a man of influence could hurt a woman. She’d learned that last autumn.
As she was handed out of the carriage, she pasted a smile on her face she knew wasn’t reflected in her eyes.
“Gracious, it’s so lovely,” she exclaimed, as befitted a new wife. The sweep of creamy-colored Cotswold stone, with simple Corinthian columns, was impressive.
“I—” She caught sight of the expanse of lake that took her breath and words away. The water was almost the color of Bristol glass, a deep blue she wanted to dive into.
“I knew you’d like the lake.” Everett’s voice came from behind her.
She nodded silently, and for a moment, they both looked.
He took a long, audible breath. “The staff are waiting.”
She turned with him to find a whole village’s worth of staff lined up, a tremendous number of staff for a bachelor household. Everett guided her, introducing the steward, butler, housekeeper, and cook. Then, instead of leading her into the house, he continued, introducing the footmen. After them, at the head of the row of maids was a blond girl, her unusual dark brown eyes large and cheerful. She was beautiful. A tremor went through Grace.
“This is your lady’s maid, Letty.”
It was only when Letty’s face showed a flicker of confusion that Grace realized her smile had slipped, and she stretched it across her face again. She said something kind about being sure Letty would be very competent.
“And this is Jane, the first housemaid.” Everett indicated another pretty young lady, her head bowed respectfully and her black hair gleaming in the afternoon light.
Grace had the feeling she was standing outside of herself, watching a steam locomotive careen off its tracks. She forced herself to acknowledge every maid as he introduced them. Her back tensed as they came to the end of the house staff line and the score of maids. If he only knew the names of the women… But he continued, introducing the head gardener and naming half a dozen of the outdoor male servants. Her spine relaxed a little. It was quite to his credit that he knew his servants so well. She smiled at every one, and put Letty and Jane and the others to the back of her mind. It was just coincidence that the maids at Larksview were beautiful young women. There was probably nothing to worry about.
…
The house looked worse with fresh eyes. As Everett guided Grace through the high entrance hall, the cracks in its white marble floor and patches of slightly darker sections of wallpaper screamed at him. He needed to get her upstairs, to where the large windows brought in light and views across the lake on one side of the house and the hill on the other.
“Let me show you to your rooms, darling.” He indicated the stairs. Grace kept her chin lifted as she reached the first step, the square where the portrait of his father used to be directly ahead of her.
On the landing, he opened the door to the lady of the house’s bedroom. Her skirts brushed against his legs as she passed him, gazing around slowly, warily. They were on the south side of the house, looking toward the water, and the walls were decorated in a feminine lilac, which was faded in places to palest white pink from the sun. His own rooms, in dark green, adjoined. She glanced around, taking in furnishings with an approving murmur, then headed for the window.
“It’s a beautiful view,” Grace said, loud enough to be heard from the hallway. Presumably for any servants who might be curiously listening in.
He appreciated the vista each day, proud of the Larksview estate and everything it stood for. But with Grace framed by it, her tiny waist appearing exactly the fit for his arms, her hair shining, it took the air from him.
“I thought you might like these rooms.” They looked shabby compared to her beauty. He’d thought them appropriate, mostly because they nearly had a full complement of furniture and hangings. But the view of the lake in all its variable glory was the true elegance of the house. That she recognized its value, too, was a kernel of understanding between them, and it warmed him.
“Thank you.” She turned and smiled, and it was like a fire arrow to his chest.
“Is there anything else you require?”
“No. I’m sure I will be comfortable here. I just…” A slight frown of confusion marred her brow, her gaze flitting around the room.
“What is it?”
“Where are the paintings?”
And there it was. A flush of red swept through him. “There are none.” The feeling of pride in Larksview receded, drawing back from his arms, toward his chest.
She tilted her head. “Twelve generations of Westbury Earls and none of them cared to have any portraits?”
A dozen generations, and he had been the one to let them down. “They were sold.”
“Oh. Well.” Appearing to mentally shake herself, she added cheerfully, “What about the amateur pictures? They are just as good as anything done by the so-called masters.”
Everett gritted his teeth. “They were all sold.” He heard the anger in his voice and felt like a wretch. He hated her for inadvertently triggering this humiliation. In his determination to not be as proud and reckless with the lives of those on the estate, he’d let down the family lineage.
“I see.” She turned back to the window and the sweeping view beyond, and in her posture, he read all the condemnation he felt himself.
How to explain? December last year, he had gone through the house, picking out the expensive paintings. The paintings had been one of the last things to go, and also the most thoroughly excised. With the silver, china, and furniture, he had taken time selecting the most valuable items and leaving enough that the house could both function and allow sufficient work for the servants that they wouldn’t be embarrassed. But by the time he got to the paintings, the wage bill had to be paid, and there was interest due on his brother’s debts.
The significant thing was not the glory of the Westbury name, but the reality of looking after the people who relied on the Lord of Westbury for their living. Sacrifice pictures of and by the dead, for the living. His mother had been livid. She’d insisted on certain pictures remaining. They had argued over an indifferent oil painting of a Jack Russell that had been rendered quite acceptable by a gold frame.
After taking down and putting back up tens of pictures, helped by Clarke the butler and John Footman, he realized they all should be sold. Every single one had a value, even if just for the pretty frame, and that value was lower than that of keeping the estate solvent.
But it had only been a temporary fix. A few months later, the demand for full payment of his brother’s debt had come, and the first few calves had died. Soon after those two crises had emerged, Everett had given up and gone to find a rich wife. The sacrifice of the paintings had been for nothing. He might as well have found a wife sooner and saved some Westbury dignity.
He couldn’t say anything to justify himself and there were serious questions to be dealt with. Particularly, whether culling was the best way to deal with rinderpest, or whether he ought to risk an inoculation program that could save the cattle, or ruin the work done so far.
He turned to leave. “Dinner is at eight.” Doing the right thing for the estate and not being like his family was a continual fight. He wasn’t like his father, ignoring the estate while gambling everything on a doomed capital venture. He wasn’t like his brother, racking up debt with the high-life in London. And he definitely wouldn’t be like his mother, bitterly defending and pining after a spouse who never returned her love.
“Thank God you’re back. Cottley Farm can’t wait much longer. Are the marriage settlements organized?” Thompson stood as Everett entered his study, presumably having been waiting for him.
“Hello to you, too, Thompson.” He sank into his leather chair in front of his desk, a polished oak expanse that was covered with correspondence in neat piles. That would be the work of Thompson. “We stopped at the solicitor on our way out of town. The check is here.” He extracted it from his breast pocket and tossed it onto the desk. “The other half will arrive in six weeks.” He hoped it would. “This ought to suffice for now. Now, sit and tell me the news.”
“It’s no better than when you left.” Thompson sat in the chair Everett indicated. “There’s another demand for Peter’s debt. And the cattle are…” Thompson sighed. “Well, one thing has changed. For the worse. Some of the farmers are refusing to cull.”
Everett put his elbows on the lustrous mahogany desk as exhaustion swept over him. This could derail all their work. “Who?”
“The Walkers at Bridge Farm. And John Evans.”
John Evans was a curmudgeonly old man whose farm was at the far end of the estate. It would be a little while until he needed to be persuaded. The Walkers were more of a problem. Bridge Farm was a critical central point. It was also close to Home Farm. “I will go and talk to the Walkers tomorrow. The day after my wedding, no less.”
Thompson perked up. “You married today? Monday for health. The farmers are a superstitious bunch, you know.” Thompson nodded. “I’ll tell them about this.”
It was true. The farmers around here believed any number of reasons that the Cattle Plague had come to them. Transmitted on the air of candles or with dried hides and other nonsense. Others whispered that it was because the old lord, his brother Peter, didn’t go to church, or because they’d seen a fox lying down next to a cow. Thompson was good with the farmers for that reason—he knew every superstition, even if he didn’t always adhere to them. For any unlucky omen a person could see, Thompson could see three fortuitous ones. He’d been the same with the soldiers under his command.
“This marriage of yours, they have already picked it up like a lucky penny in the dirt. They think it bodes well to have a love match in the ‘big house.’”
Everett thought of Grace’s silence in the carriage and winced inwardly. “I don’t know about that.”
“I assume you chose her because she will be a good countess? Is she kind and generous, ready to listen sweetly to the concerns of the village women and charm all the men?”
Concern shot through him. “She’s—” He searched for the correct word. “It’s complicated. Her father has recently died and she needs time and space to grieve. I’m not sure I can ask her to take on duties so soon.” What Thompson didn’t know was that unless Grace and her money stayed, there wasn’t enough money to pay for the slaughtered cows, the upkeep on the estate, and to pay off the debt. He also had to keep the tenants happy, and that meant bringing his gracious wife to meet them all and ward off bad omens.
There wasn’t a decision, really. Money trumped superstition. He would do everything in his power to make Grace happy.
While he changed for dinner, Everett thought about how to seduce his wife. They would have all evening to talk and he would draw her out, make her laugh and make her feel comfortable. Then, the night could lead on logically from that. All women wanted to be wooed on their wedding night and initiated into the joys of lovemaking. He might never have a moment when she was more susceptible to being with him.
He would go through the adjoining door to her room tonight, when she was expecting him, and tell her that she was lovely and desirable. Blood flowed to his cock at the thought of her, lustrous hair spread across white sheets, generous curves and pink nipples made for his mouth, her quim hot and willing. She was so tightly strung, it would be incredible to see her come apart as he stroked into her. He would whisper in her ear how beautiful she was, as she panted with desire.
Damn. Now he was fully hard. He had to get a grip on himself, think of… But the image of Grace’s hair falling across her breasts refused to fade from his mind. He clenched his fists and waited for the arousal to pass.
It didn’t. With a growl of frustration, he yanked open his trousers and drawers. The sensitized head of his cock twitched at the brush of his fingers. This wouldn’t take long, and he didn’t want it to. He jerked himself off furiously, his grip harsh. He didn’t allow himself to savor the thought of the curve of Grace’s waist and bottom, roughly pushing his pleasure forward until he was climaxing in a heated rush.
A prickle crept over his neck as he wiped his hands. He ignored it. It had been right to get this lust out of his system. It would allow him to do this wedding night properly, without the ravages of want overcoming him. He would reassure her, he would charm her. Eventually, he would kiss her. The rest would come naturally.
A knock at his door came just as he did up the last button on the fall of his trousers.
“Enter.” He straightened his waistcoat. “What is it?”
“The dowager countess has arrived, my lord.” Clarke, the butler, appeared in the doorway. “Shall I arrange an extra setting for dinner?”
Oh no. His mother was precisely the wrong person to have around when seducing his wife.
…
Grace had expected to find Everett alone before dinner. But as one of the footmen opened the door into the sitting room, a strong female voice was declaring, “…not one of us, Everett. You will regret this mistake.”
It took considerable effort to glide into the room as she had been taught in Geneva and smile mildly at Everett when he jumped up to greet her.
“Grace, my mother has decided to join us for dinner. May I introduce the Dowager Countess of Westbury.” He sounded agitated, and his expression begged her to ignore what she might have heard.
Grace raised her chin and returned the smile, along with a bob curtsy. She hadn’t realized he had living relatives. She’d imagined him an orphan. Like her. Seeing him with family, the discovery felt like a tie between them had been cut. It was yet another dissimilarity, along with their class, their priorities, and their power.
“Besides.” The dowager ignored Grace altogether. “The farms will turn a good profit soon. A few years of poor harvest because of the abysmal weather, and you go running off trying to fix something that will fix itself well enough.”
His jaw set, but he didn’t reply. Despite herself, Grace felt a sweep of sympathy for him. Snobbery was unpleasant. She would know.
“Mother, may I present my wife, Grace, Countess of Westbury.”
The introduction was like a pelisse that was too big and awkward in the arms and yet too tight around her chest, constricting her.
The dowager glanced over to Grace from her seated position, managing to look down her nose at her. Her hair was dark, like her son’s, but streaked through with gray. She was not a large lady, but somehow she took up the entirety of the settee, the only comfortable piece of furniture in the room. Even if she had wanted to, Grace could not have sat next to her. Neither could she sit in comfort. The whole house was remarkably devoid of expensive furnishings.
“Yes, well I see clearly what happened, Westbury.” The dowager puckered her upper lip. “Your father was just the same.” She added audibly under her breath, “Though more sensible about such inappropriate liaisons.”
Grace caught a flash of anger in Everett’s expression, before he covered it. He took two steps to Grace’s side and covered her hand with his. It might just be for show, but she appreciated it all the same.
The gesture was not lost on the dowager, who smiled thinly. “Well, it’s done now. We shall just have to make the best of it.”
“I’m sure it will work out much better than you imagine.” Grace made her face into an agreeable expression the dowager could take as a challenge.
Just six weeks.
Just these short weeks and she would be in London, and soon after little Henry would join her, and the dowager could think what she liked. Almost certainly, the woman would feel vindicated and tell her son that marrying down always ended badly. It was inevitable, and yet with her hand clasped with Everett’s, pretending to be in love, their bargain seemed a betrayal.
The other interpretation—of the two of them being so madly in love they would work everything out together—was sweeter.
But no good could come from it.
Everett gave her hand a squeeze, and Grace flicked her gaze up to his. He gave her a conspiratorial grin. Her unruly heart thudded in reply, but she couldn’t smile.
The butler announcing dinner saved the dowager from having to reply to this little tableau, and they went through into the drafty dining room.
When they’d been seated, the dowager countess turned to Everett. “Now you are back, you can stop this butchering and burning. The smoke is terrible, and the fields are starting to look quite empty.”
“If the cattle plague spreads to other of our tenants, or farther across the country, it shall be a serious problem.” His face was drawn as he said this, as though it was an oft repeated argument he was not sure he believed anymore.
His mother pressed her lips together. “Have you arranged the repairs to the stone carvings yet? The condition of this house is embarrassing.”
“No. Not yet.” Everett’s eyes flicked up to Grace. “Are you not curious about your new daughter?”
The woman turned to Grace and looked at her silently while the footmen served the starter of green bean salad. Her dress was lilac, the color of a mother still mourning for her son. It rather suited her slight frame and stern countenance and set off her gray hair held up in a tight style on the top of her head. “You come from trade, I believe.”
That was her defining characteristic, naturally. Everett had tried to portray Grace as sympathetic, but there was no room in the aristocracy for her. “As Everett says, my—”
“Lord Westbury,” the dowager snapped. “His name is Lord Westbury.”
He’d told her to call him Everett, and now she was being chastised by his aristocratic mother for it. She dug her nails into her palm. It was so entirely typical of lords and ladies. They didn’t want the likes of her to be familiar, even if they were supposed to be a newly married couple, in love.
Everett’s face tightened. “Mother, that name is still unfamiliar to me. My friends call me Everett. And my wife may call me whatever she likes.” He looked across the table at Grace, a tender apology in his eyes.
The dowager raised a sculpted eyebrow. “Just because you have no respect for the proper forms and address, does not mean that they do not matter. I believe in plain speaking. Plainly, you are the Earl of Westbury. And plainly, she is from no family at all. Is that correct, young lady?”
A simple yes would be the most appropriate answer. Shame and denial of the months she’d spent sustaining Alnott Stores had been forced into her during her season and recently at the finishing school. But she was proud of the success her family had made of Alnott Stores.
“My father is dead. My mother is dead. The fortune I bring to this marriage is from shops. My grandfather and father were plain Mr. Alnott and in trade. So yes, if having a dowry paid for by commerce, a family that is honored to serve for communities, then I am from no family at all.” Her heart beat against her corset as if trying to escape. Her words were insanity. There was a stunned silence.
The footmen and butler cleared away the plates and served a dinner of roast lamb and vegetables. The dowager took a sip of wine, and dinner resumed in a clink of implements.
Everett cleared his throat. “What did your parents sell?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Alnott Stores are grocers.”
“I see. And did you like, as a child, seeing all the cabbages and things?” He corralled the finely sliced courgette on his plate onto his fork.
“Not a greengrocer. A grocer.”
His mother stared pointedly at her wine.
Everett put down his knife and fork and spread his hands in defeat. “I’m not sure I exactly know the difference.” His smile was disarming. “I have never done my own shopping. There was never any need in the army. Or here.”
They were from such different worlds. She had spent much of her childhood in Alnott Stores. “You have probably never set foot in a grocer.”
“Well, educate us. What is a grocer’s shop like?” There was genuine curiosity in his question and a little dare. He leaned back, like a man settling down to be entertained.
Grace looked sidelong at the dowager, who was eating as though each mouthful were uncooked flour in her mouth and appeared not to be listening. It was difficult to describe something she knew so well to an outsider.
“When you walk into an Alnott Stores, you’ll smell tea. We sell dry foodstuffs, but usually the tea smells the strongest. Behind the counter, there are drawers and shelves full of different types of tea and coffee. Underneath, there are bins of sugar, flour, and dried fruit. There are smaller containers with spices, pepper, and salt. Some of the shops also sell butter and eggs, but they are usually local and aren’t bought in bulk. The counters are pale varnished oak. Father preferred it to the dark stained fittings that shops usually have. He said the light made people more positive in mood. The countertop is kept very clean, as it has to be because of the pale wood. There are usually two scales, and all the scoops and measures and knifes are kept along the counter.”
“So Alnott Stores are clean and bright. Is that the secret to its success?” Everett smiled at her.
That was a frivolous sort of reason for a shop’s success. “Not just that, no. Father realized that if he bought in much larger quantities, directly from producers, he could sell a better product at a lower price than other grocers.”
It was a story her father had liked to tell her. Her parents had started off buying from wholesaler traders like other shops. When Grace had been a toddler, a supplier let them down. Rather than disappoint their customers, Mother had suggested they take a gamble, charter a ship and send it out to trade for the tea and sugar. With a warehouse full of goods, they needed to sell quickly, and she rented two extra shops and sent apprentices to sell the items. It had been successful, and they had worked that way since, being both trader and merchant, opening four, then ten, then dozens of stores. The key, Mother had explained to her, was to take a difficult situation and turn it to your advantage. That, and a good deal of luck.
“She liked to say that Alnott was excellent quality at a reasonable price.”
Everett nodded thoughtfully as she concluded the story.
“She?” The dowager leveled a contemptuous stare at Grace.
“I said he,” Grace retorted, then regretted the transparency of the denial. She ought to have acted confused. It was always a bad idea to reveal how much her mother had been the main force in running Alnott Stores. It cast aspersions on her own childhood, and whether she was even slightly respectable or completely mired in the muck of paid labor.
Her father had been competent, in his own way. Her mother, though, had been clever, and as soon as Grace was old enough to talk, she’d gone to the stores with her parents, sitting quietly, listening, and reading while her mother worked. Mrs. Alnott hadn’t had any time for governesses. Once Grace had finished in the nursery, she’d learned her numbers on a ledger and her letters in an order book.
The Season in London her father had insisted on had taught her she preferred her role taking care of Alnott Stores. It had also shown her that society was disgusted with a lady who worked. It was bad enough for her father to be in trade. For her mother? Or Grace herself? Unthinkable.
“You definitely said she.” The woman regarded her like a fox considers a rabbit. “Was that your mother?”
“You must have misheard.” Everett smiled blandly.
The dowager, tilted her head at her, sneering slightly, then turned to Everett. “How is Lord Osborne? Presumably, he has resisted the temptation of commerce?”
Grace had been dismissed on her own wedding day. Worse, she still had to sit through this dinner with no distraction from thinking of the night ahead.