After hearing Lord Stoneville explain how his grandmother had dictated that her grandchildren marry within the year, Maria wasn’t sure she agreed with his assessment of the matter. The woman sounded pretty formidable.
“Why are you all so reluctant to accommodate her, anyway?” she asked. “It’s not as if your grandmother is trying to force you to marry any particular person you don’t fancy. And everyone marries eventually.”
“Not everyone.” His voice softened. “Besides, it’s not right that my siblings be forced into anything prematurely. What if they can’t find someone who suits them in a year? Someone for whom they feel genuine affection? Marrying without that is more of a hell than never marrying at all.” He gazed out the window, his eyes suddenly somber.
Had he been married before? Or was he speaking hypothetically? Maria wanted to know more, but she suspected he wouldn’t tell her. Besides, it wasn’t her concern. If he was bent on getting himself and his siblings out of marrying, so be it. As long as he held up his end of their bargain, she didn’t care.
But it did annoy her that he’d been so cynical about her own prospects. Did he think no one would marry her unless Papa “sweetened the pot”?
All right, so sometimes she did wonder about Nathan’s motives, but he’d always insisted that he would have married her without Papa’s offer. He never spoke of love, but she’d never seen him flirt with other women, so he must have genuine feelings for her even if they weren’t the passionate kind she read about in books.
She frowned. The trouble with Lord Stoneville was that he saw the whole world through a heavy black veil. He had no morals, so he assumed everyone else lacked them, too. No wonder his grandmother despaired of him.
“By Jiminy, will you look at that!” Freddy exclaimed.
Maria followed his gaze out the window to a well-lit group of buildings far back from the road. “What’s the name of that village?” she asked Lord Stoneville.
“It’s not a village,” he bit out as the horse turned onto a long drive leading toward the lights. “That’s Halstead Hall. My estate. ”
Her breath died in her throat. “But how . . . there are so many roofs—”
“Yes.” For a moment, she thought he would say nothing more. Then he went on in an oddly detached voice. “It was built at a time when sprawling houses were common for the wealthy. Henry VIII gave it to the first Marquess of Stoneville in thanks for some service he rendered. It’s been in the family ever since.”
He didn’t seem happy about it, which made no sense. How amazing to own such a spectacular house. And for his family to have inherited it from a king, too!
“If you don’t mind my asking,” she ventured, “how many rooms are there?”
“A few hundred or so.”
“Or so?” she squeaked.
“No one’s ever counted beyond three hundred. We take it on faith. By the fifth courtyard and the tenth building, you get a little muddled. It’s fairly large.”
Fairly large? It was a palace! She’d never imagined that anyone other than royalty lived in something so magnificent.
“Must cost you a fortune to keep it up,” Freddy said.
“You have no idea,” Lord Stoneville ground out. “This is the first time since my parents’ death that I’ve seen it so well lit. The candles alone . . .” He frowned. “Now that Gran is visiting, someone is clearly doing it up brown for her, blast it.”
Why on earth would that make him angry? This conversation grew more and more curious. “There’s the answer to your financial woes,” Maria said. “You just sell that, and your family will have enough to live on for another three centuries.”
“I only wish that were an option,” he said bitterly. “In England we have something called entailment. It means the property can’t be sold by any of its heirs, including me. Even the contents are entailed.”
“You could rent it out to a king or something,” Freddy said.
“Only a king could afford it, I’m afraid. No one leases a pile like that unless they’ve got a serious fortune. And it’s not the current fashion for the newly rich—it’s too old, and the furnishings are ancient. Trust me, I’ve tried.”
The way he spoke, as if his estate were nothing but a burden, surprised her. “I’m sure it’s very difficult for you,” she said dryly, “owning a palace and all.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black, Miss Butterfield? If you can be believed, you’re not exactly destitute. Your father owned a ship company, yet here you are without funds.”
“True, but we never lived in a palace.”
“Neither do I, most of the time.” He gazed pensively out the window. “I rarely come here. It’s been closed up until recently.”
“Why?”
Silence followed, and she wasn’t sure he’d heard her, until he said, “Some places are better left to rot.”
The words shocked her. “What do you mean, my lord?”
He stiffened. “Nothing. And don’t call me ‘my lord.’ That’s what servants do. You’re my fiancée, remember?” He sounded irritated. “I’ll call you Maria, and you should probably call me by my Christian name—Oliver.”
An unusual name for an English lord. “Were you named after the playwright, Oliver Goldsmith?”
“Alas, no. I was named after the Puritan, Oliver Cromwell.”
“You’re joking.”
“Afraid not. My father thought it amusing, considering his own . . . er . . . tendency toward debauchery.”
Lord help her, the man’s very name was a jab at respectability. Meanwhile, his estate could probably hold the entire town of Dartmouth!
A sudden panic seized her. How could she pretend to be the fiancée of a man who owned a house like that?
“I was named after King Frederick,” Freddy put in.
“Which one?” asked Lord Stoneville. Oliver.
“There’s more than one?” Freddy asked.
“There’s at least ten,” the marquess said dryly.
Freddy knit his brow. “I’m not sure which one.”
When humor glinted in Oliver’s eyes, Maria said, “I think Aunt Rose was aiming for a generally royal-sounding name.”
“That’s it,” Freddy put in. “Just a King Frederick in general.”
“I see,” Oliver said solemnly, though his lips had a decided twitch. His gaze flicked to her. “What about you? Which Maria are you named after?”
“The Virgin Mary, of course,” Freddy said.
“Of course,” Oliver said, eyes gleaming. “I should have known.”
“We’re Catholic,” Freddy added.
“My mother was Catholic,” Maria corrected him. “Papa wasn’t, but since Freddy’s mother is, too, we were both raised Catholic.” Not that she’d ever taken any of it very seriously. Papa had always railed against the foolishness of religion.
A devious smile broke over Oliver’s face. “A Catholic, too? Oh, this just gets better and better. Gran will have an apoplectic fit when she meets you.”
Tired of his insulting comments about her background, she said, “Really, sir—”
“We’re here,” he announced as the coach pulled to a halt.
Maria glanced out, her stomach clenching. Halstead Hall seemed to go on forever on either side, glistening like a multifaceted jewel in the wintry moonlight. The front might be considered plain—no grand steps, no towering columns—if not for the crenellated stone façade and battlements at the corners. Not to mention the massive oak door, now opening for their arrival. It was as if she’d stumbled into King Arthur’s court.
But the footmen and grooms in elaborate livery who came running were decidedly from this century.
Oliver tensed. “Apparently Gran brought her own servants, as well.” A footman put down the step and Oliver climbed out, then helped her out, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm.
“Has my grandmother sat down to dinner yet?” he asked the footman in the same imperious tones he’d used at the brothel.
“No, milord.”
“Good. Go tell Cook there will be three more for dinner.”
Maria clung to Oliver’s arm, feeling all at sea. It wasn’t as if she’d never had servants. After Papa began doing well, he’d hired a few, but he hadn’t dressed them in matching livery. These servants fluttered about them, taking her redingote and the men’s coats and hats as if it were an honor to serve “his lordship.” It unnerved her. Especially with Oliver glowering at them.
The archway she and Oliver walked through led them into a stone courtyard surrounded on four sides by walls punctuated with other doors. He took them across the cobblestones to yet another heavy oak door, which opened ahead of them. It made her feel like royalty being escorted through a palace.
Then they passed into a large room of such stunning aspect that she caught her breath. “This is the great hall,” Oliver explained. “It’s rather frighteningly medieval looking.”
“I think it’s beautiful.”
“Gran loves it. It’s her favorite room in the place.”
Maria could well understand why. Two scarred marble fireplaces broke up the vast expanse of one oak-paneled wall, and well-worn benches ran along the other. But it was the Jacobean oak screen spanning the end of the room—twenty feet high and wide enough to accommodate two doors—that captured her attention. It was carved with fantastical creatures and coats of arms. At the top, near the plasterwork ceiling with its own intricate designs, was a breathtaking latticework.
She was so captivated by the screen that she didn’t notice what lay at the other end of the room until a voice called out from behind them, “I see you managed to arrive in time for dinner, Oliver.”
As she and Oliver turned toward the voice, she spotted the elaborately carved, painted, and gilded staircase that rose above the ancient entrance hall. With its paint rubbed off in places, it looked older than America itself, yet sturdy enough to easily hold the five people descending it.
At the head of them, clinging to the arm of a lovely young woman, was a gray-haired lady whose eyes surveyed Maria with sharp interest. Behind them descended two young men and another young lady, all of whom looked uneasy.
“Good evening, everyone,” Oliver said, his voice cool. “May I introduce my fiancée? This is Miss Maria Butterfield and her cousin, Mr. Frederick . . .”
Maria realized he didn’t know Freddy’s surname. “Dunse,” she murmured.
His startled gaze flew to her. “Seriously?”
She nodded.
“Mr. Frederick Dunse,” he announced.
Behind them, she heard Freddy mutter a curse. She didn’t have to look at him to know he was glaring at one and all as if daring them to laugh or make some joke.
“Maria,” Oliver said, “these are my brothers, Lord Jarret and Lord Gabriel. My sisters, Lady Minerva and Lady Celia. And my grandmother, Mrs. Hester Plumtree.”
His siblings murmured greetings. The older woman cast Maria a nod, though her eyes fixed on Maria’s shamelessly cheap and low-cut gown. “How interesting to make your acquaintance, Miss Butterfield.”
That was the understatement of all time. “I’m honored to meet you, madam.” Maria hoped that was right. And why was his grandmother called “Mrs.” when the rest were called “lord” and “lady”?
“Maria and her cousin are American,” Oliver went on smoothly. “We only met recently—it’s been something of a whirlwind courtship.” He squeezed her hand. “Hasn’t it, my dear?”
“Very whirlwind,” she replied, not sure what he wanted her to say.
“Since her lodgings are less than adequate, I invited her and her cousin to stay here.” He offered the words like a challenge. “She’ll be living here after the wedding anyway, and we do have plenty of room.”
Maria nearly choked on that, and it roused a chuckle from one of the other men that was swiftly quelled by a glance from Mrs. Plumtree.
When his grandmother returned her gaze to Maria, a strange light gleamed in her eyes, and Maria prepared herself for anything. This battle was being waged with weapons beyond her ken.
So she was surprised when the woman advanced down a few more steps and said, “I’ll have the Royal Suite prepared for our guests, if that’s acceptable.”
“I don’t know why you bother to ask my opinion,” Oliver said, his voice steely. “You’ve clearly moved your entire household in here without my knowledge or approval.”
“If you’re all to marry in the next year, you can’t look like paupers.”
“And appearances are everything, aren’t they?” he shot back.
She ignored his sarcastic tone. “Speaking of that, we’ll need to send a notice to the papers about your wedding. Not to mention that the Foxmoor ball is next week. You’ll want to announce your engagement there, as well. Or do you mean to have the marriage done before then?”
Oliver’s fingers tensed on Maria’s. “It depends. We may have trouble gaining a special license, since Maria is Catholic.”
Had Mrs. Plumtree actually stumbled on the step?
If so, she recovered quickly, for her blue eyes sparked fire. “Yes, that might present a difficulty. But it can be surmounted.”
“Of course it can,” Oliver said with formidable calm. “A man of my rank can generally do as he pleases. You did say you wanted us married in all haste.”
Mrs. Plumtree’s eyes narrowed. “And Miss Butterfield’s family? Won’t they want to be here for the wedding?”
“Her parents are dead. That’s fortunate for you, since I doubt you’d want a shopkeeper’s daughter and the bastard son of a servant to appear at my wedding.”
Maria squeezed his arm. Though her role was to horrify his grandmother into rescinding her demands, he made her family sound worse than they were. And of course he said nothing of New Bedford Ships, or how Papa had risen to a position of great importance.
Mrs. Plumtree fixed Oliver with a cold gaze and said, “I’m happy to welcome anyone in your future wife’s family to your wedding.”
Judging from his black scowl, that wasn’t the answer he wanted.
“Tell me, Oliver,” the dark-haired brother said. “Where did you meet your lovely fiancée?”
The calculating smile that curved Oliver’s lips set off Maria’s alarms. “Funny you should ask that, Jarret. As it happens, we met in a brothel.”