Never Dance with a Marquess (The Never Series Book 2) Read online

  Nicholas took a long sip of reviving tea. With a swallow, he ventured where he feared he should not dare. “See whom exactly?”

  “Gentlemen.” Bella cocked her head at him as if he would understand, but he remained at a complete loss. “They try to get Carrie’s attention wherever she goes and are disappointed when she ignores them. It’s not that she’s rude or standoffish. She’s always polite, but Carrie says no man could ever measure up to Lord Byron.”

  Nicholas cast a longing eye at the crystal decanter of golden liquid on the drinks tray.

  “Miss Leeming will arrive on Friday,” Miss Scotsdale said. “And if I may venture an opinion, my lord, a firm hand is needed with the children.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Indeed?”

  “Oh, Scotty, you always say that, but you spoil us all,” Bella said, seemingly unruffled by the criticism as she reached for another tartlet. “I can’t wait to see the estate,” she said to Nicholas. “Will you show us around after Carrie arrives?”

  “I look forward to it.” Nicholas put down his cup and stood. “Welcome to Elm Park. If you’ll excuse me, ladies, correspondence awaits my attention. My butler, Abercrombie, will send a maid to show you to your rooms. I shall see you at dinner.”

  “Can we play cards after dinner? Do you play snap?”

  “As you shall be with me for some time, I am confident you will not only teach me the game but trounce me roundly.”

  Bella giggled.

  Relieved to see no further sign of tears, Nicholas left the room. His secretary awaited him in the library. “Leave the post for a moment, Paul, I have a letter to write.” He seated himself at his desk and drew a fresh sheet of bond from the drawer, then sharpened his nib.

  He would appeal to his sister, Gwen, to visit him for a short stay. Her husband, Winston, wouldn’t like it, as he’d already agreed to his wife spending a Season in London as Caroline’s chaperone while he remained at their estate with Bartholomew, their small son. Nicholas stroked his taut chin with finger and thumb. It couldn’t be helped. Winston would have to surrender his wife for a few days more. This was an emergency.

  Chapter Two

  The Vicarage, Harrogate, Yorkshire

  Carrie left the sickroom and descended the stairs. “Emily is so much better today,” she told the children’s doting mother, who was in the kitchen with the cook. “Her fever has gone, and she declares she is hungry.”

  Mrs. Barns wiped her hands on her apron. “I am about to take the invalids up some soup. You have been such a dear, Caroline. We’ve had you shut indoors for days. Go for a stroll in the fresh air before dinner, it will put the roses back in your cheeks.”

  “I shall, Mrs. Barns.”

  Pleased to be outdoors, Carrie roamed the rectory garden. She rubbed her arms in her thin pelisse, for the weather was still crisp in Yorkshire. That it would be warmer in Surrey gave her little pleasure. She met Lord Pennington, briefly, years ago. He hadn’t been the marquess then, for his father and brother were still alive. He’d revealed little interest in them and remained shut up in the library with her father for the duration of his visit while they signed documents.

  While they were out inspecting her father’s horses, Carrie had foraged among the papers on the desk of her father’s secretary and deciphered the meaning of those documents. She’d been horror-struck to read that Papa had made this stranger their guardian. She’d despised the captain, whom she saw as the harbinger of disaster. But eventually came to realize how unfair that was. Whether those papers were signed made little difference. Papa changed.

  He no longer talked of their planned trip to Greece after the war ended. He dismissed her complaints about how young gentlemen made the grand tour, while few women ever left English shores when, before his illness, he was sympathetic. As soon as the ink was dry on the agreement, he became fixated upon her marrying. How she must go to London for a Season with Aunt Penelope when she came of age. Once she turned seventeen, she resisted, and as he grew weaker, he seemed grateful to have her remain by his side. But toward the end of his life, Papa made her promise she would go to London to find a husband when Lord Pennington could arrange it.

  Carrie trailed along the paths beneath the trees. Who was Lord Pennington, really? She hated to have to depend on a virtual stranger. Experiences in the war with France would have hardened him. It was her understanding that gentlemen such as he engaged in their own pursuits, and some were rakes who cared for nothing but their own pleasure. He wasn’t much over thirty and unmarried. How could he possibly understand the needs of a young girl like Bella or a boy of Jeremy’s age? Would he push her into marriage with someone she didn’t like?

  While she hoped to love her husband, she must choose him carefully. Someone who would allow her to care for her brother and sister. Would the gentlemen in London be different? At the Harrogate and York assemblies, the men were boorish, their effusive praise, shallow, and convinced of their superiority. Once her friend, Mary Woolridge, became pregnant, her husband kept her a virtual prisoner. Carrie would not marry such a man. She had responsibilities and refused to place Bella and Jeremy at risk while they had need of her care.

  Carrie picked a bunch of snowdrops that grew near the garden wall, bending their dainty white heads on slender stems. She wandered the paths, breathing in their fresh green perfume.

  “Good day.” A young man paused on the other side of the wall to smile at her.

  Carrie nodded to him, then turned onto the path which led back to the front porch.

  “I say!” He opened the gate and followed her. “I can’t imagine why we haven’t met before. Do you stay long with the vicar?”

  Carrie smiled, noting his jaunty purple striped waistcoat, high collar, and intricately tied cravat. She sighed inwardly. “No, sir.”

  The vicar emerged through the front door as if shot out of a gun. “Have you come to see me, Mr. Waincliffe? A message from your mother, perhaps?”

  “Er, no, Vicar… I was just passing…”

  “Then I suggest you be on your way.”

  Mr. Waincliffe shuffled his feet. After a longing glance at Carrie, he went back out the gate. With another look over his shoulder, he settled his tall hat on his head and continued down the street.

  “Miss Leeming.” Mr. Barnswell stood before her, his shoulders stiff. “It might be preferable for you to remain within the house until you leave on Thursday. Otherwise, I fear my sermon will not be ready by Sunday.”

  “Oh? Yes, Mr. Barnswell. I picked some flowers for Mrs. Barns. Aren’t they pretty? So delicate.”

  “Indeed, my dear.” With a glance up and down the street, he gestured for her to pass before him into the house.

  Carrie had delivered her posy and was ascending the stairs when she heard the vicar speak to his wife in the hall.

  “As helpful and delightful as Miss Leeming is, I shan’t be sorry to see her go to Lord Pennington. I declare men buzz around her like bees. I pity the poor fellow the task of keeping the men at bay while finding her a husband.”

  “Now, August, you were young once. Have you forgotten?” Mrs. Barns admonished him.

  “You were the prettiest girl in Harrogate, Constance, but I cannot for the life of me remember you causing quite that much of a stir.”

  Carrie smiled at Mrs. Barns’s tinkling laugh. She reached the top of the stairs and paused, a hand on the banister. Surely the marquess would consider them a burden? He might show no interest in them. She bit her lip. If only her father was still with them. Life had been perfect at Leeming Hall, their beloved, ramshackle old Tudor manor house, but with Jeremy too young to take up the duties of a barony, the estate had been leased to a tenant.

  She entered the room where her maid, Anna, packed her trunk.

  “Are you looking forward to going to his lordship’s, Miss Carrie?” Anna asked her.

  Carrie picked up a bonnet whose blue ribbons had faded dreadfully. She wondered if she would be able to purchase ribbon in Elm Park Villa
ge. “To have more time with Bella and Jeremy, certainly.”

  “I wonder what Lord Pennington is like,” Anna said, folding a nightgown.

  “We shall find out soon enough,” Carrie said, taking a deep breath. What if he were a bad-tempered tyrant? Surely he couldn’t be. But it still left her feeling most unsettled.

  ***

  After a long, arduous journey, Bickle, the family coachman, drove the carriage through a set of elaborate iron gates with Elm Park emblazoned on them. With a wave at the gatekeeper, they proceeded along a road bordered by woodland, before crossing a stone bridge over the river. Then they emerged from an avenue of graceful elms into a fine park.

  Nerves fluttered in Carrie’s stomach when the enormous house appeared on a slight rise. In its setting of fountains and terraces, immaculate gardens and lush green lawns, the golden stone building, with a row of towering columns across the front façade, was extremely imposing.

  “Ooh, it is far bigger than Leeming Hall, Miss Carrie,” Anna said in a hushed voice.

  “Undoubtedly.” It was very different from home in every way. A handsome residence, but she doubted it would prove as comfortable as Leeming Hall, their beloved, untidy, ramshackle home in Yorkshire. She thought with regret of the orchard, of wandering among the apple trees and feeding apples to the horses. That life was over, she told herself sternly. And it was no good at all hanging onto the past. Although the Hall would one day be Jeremy’s home. She must hold on to that.

  A footman hurried to put down the steps and assist her and her maid from the coach. This was not to be her home. She was only to stay a few weeks. However, she prayed Jeremy and Bella would come to think of it that way as time passed, at least until she could offer them a home with her after she married. So much depended on her marrying the right man. It all lay ahead of her, like an unclimbable mountain. The very thought filled her veins with ice.

  She hurried over to say goodbye to the coachman and wish him well. After a night of resting the horses, he and Henry, their groom, would return to Leeming Hall to work for the new tenant.

  He tapped his hat with his whip. “It was my pleasure, Miss Leeming. Please convey my good wishes to Miss Arabella and Lord Leeming.”

  “I will, thank you, Bickle.”

  Carrie stepped onto the porch where a grizzled-haired butler in a dark-gray tailcoat and stark white linens waited at the entrance. “Abercrombie, Miss Leeming. I have advised his lordship of your arrival, and he shall be along directly.”

  “Thank you, Abercrombie.” She smiled tremulously, took a deep breath, and entered the lofty, marble-floored great hall where marble statues stood about and enormous gilt-edged paintings lined the walls. What would he be like? Apprehensive, she removed her hat and pelisse as she waited for the marquess to appear.

  Chapter Three

  Nicholas went downstairs to greet the latest member of his extended family, wishing his sister had arrived in time to assist him. He entered the great hall as a young woman handed her bonnet and pelisse to Abercrombie, her maid standing beside her.

  “Miss Leeming. Caroline. It is good to see you again,” he said. How did one greet the sister of his wards? She would be a guest in his house for several weeks. Did he kiss her cheek? He chose not to, sensing it would not be welcome, and instead, bent in a slight bow. “I trust you had a comfortable journey?”

  She bobbed a curtsey.

  “It wasn’t as terrible as I expected, my lord,” she said. “Fortunately, the weather improved once we’d left Yorkshire.” In a graceful, unconscious gesture, she put up a hand to tuck away a glossy auburn lock that had escaped its pins. Huge, clear brown eyes observed him with a serious expression beneath straight dark eyebrows.

  He eyed her appreciatively as a man, while more than a little apprehensively in his role of managing her debut. Caroline held the promise of prettiness when he’d last seen her. A schoolroom miss, she’d glared at him, which surprised him at the time. Now twenty years old, this young woman would be considered a diamond of the first water by the ton. Tall, willowy, and graceful, her features finely wrought, her mouth perfect—if her lips weren’t pressed so firmly together. He feared she still wanted to glare at him, although now too polite to allow him to see it. The responsibility for the Leeming children weighed even more heavily upon him. Fortunately, his sister, Gwen, would chaperone Caroline.

  A footman opened the door for them to enter the morning room, a less formal room, which might put her at her ease. “Bella is with her governess. I’ve sent someone to fetch her.”

  She sat on the sofa, and Nicholas took the armchair opposite. “A footman will introduce your maid to the staff.”

  If he’d expected a will-o’-the-wisp clasping a volume of poetry to her chest, he couldn’t have been more wrong. Beneath her dark lashes, she was making a critical study of him. He resisted tugging at his cravat like some callow youth. She would have the younger male members of the ton on their knees and a good deal of the older fellows, too. With dread, Nicholas thought of the rakes and fortune hunters who would undoubtedly circle like hungry wolves. Especially as her dowry was handsome.

  He eased his shoulders. Perhaps there was no need for him to worry. He would be able to find a suitable match among the gentlemen seeking a wife this Season. One or two he could bring immediately to mind. Decent fellows. She might be engaged before the Season’s end. With Caroline in his sister’s care in London, Bella in the schoolroom, and Jeremy back at Eton after the holidays, his treasured independence would be preserved, leaving him to work on his book. He smiled at her, somewhat reassured.

  “I should like to discuss Bella and Jeremy with you when you have a moment, my lord,” Caroline said, her voice sweet but firm. “Jeremy has not done well in his studies this past year, which is entirely excusable after we lost our dear papa, but I should not want it to continue. He is to go to Oxford in a few years. His dream is to become an archeologist. Bella will soon require a dance instructor, and she must continue with the harp.”

  “Not the harp,” he said more sharply than he intended.

  She stiffened.

  “We have an excellent piano in the music room.”

  “But, my lord, Bella has always…”

  He shook his head decisively. “Young ladies performing the instrument at musicales with a lack of finesse are grindingly dull. Pluck pluck, pluck. Why not something more pleasing, like the piano or the violin?”

  “Bella has shown some promise, my lord.”

  “You can’t continue to call me, my lord, Carrie.” He deliberately used Caroline’s nickname, hoping to banish the starch from her spine. “Nicholas is my given name, which is quite appropriate.”

  She flushed slightly, and he caught sight of deep hurt in her eyes. “Yes...I understand. Papa left a letter…Nicholas.”

  It made him feel like a cad. Of course, she still mourned her father. Max had been a loveable fellow and a wonderful father. Nicholas, being twelve years older than she, must make her view him as Bella did, like an uncle. He couldn’t help disliking the notion, adopting an avuncular manner didn’t sit well with him, but perhaps it was wise if the governess’s warning proved correct, and their youthful exuberance required a firm hand. He would not allow her two siblings to run rings around him and disturb the peace he’d worked hard to achieve since the war, and neither would he allow Carrie to make unreasonable demands.

  “While I agree with most of what you ask of me, I cannot countenance the harp,” he said in a milder tone. “I shall employ a tutor to teach Bella another instrument.”

  Carrie’s eyebrows lowered, and her lips firmed, but she made no further objection. He suffered the uneasy feeling she was biding her time. “I should like Bella to live with me once I have my own establishment.”

  He wasn’t about to agree to anything yet. “We’d best leave that decision until you are married.”

  At that moment, the door burst open. “Carrie! I’ve been so lonely without you.” With a sob, Bella ran ac
ross the carpet to throw her arms around her sister.

  “It hasn’t been very long, goose,” Carrie said, hugging her.

  A little shamefaced, Bella, tears in her green eyes, glanced at Nicholas. “But I have been most comfortable here. Nicholas doesn’t play snap, but he’s promised to learn. And there’s a wonderful garden, the lake has a small island and a rowboat, and Jeremy will adore Nicholas’s magnificent thoroughbreds. He has promised to ride with us, haven’t you, Nicholas? The library is splendid, there is a world map with all the countries on it, and his adorable dog, Chester, you must come and see.”

  Carrie laughed. “Please draw breath, dearest! There is plenty of time. I will be here for a few weeks yet. And Bella, you must remember you are to spend most of your days in the schoolroom and not wandering the house or the library at will.”

  “Nicholas invited me to use the library.” Bella cast a look of appeal in his direction. “As long as I ask first.”

  “How kind,” Carrie said, a little crisply, he thought. She seemed determined to dislike him.

  A maid brought lemonade and biscuits while the girls chatted. As they required little from him, Nicholas sat back with a glass of wine to observe them. Although they both had Max’s red hair, Carrie’s was darker, and Bella’s eyes were green. They were different in other ways, too. It wasn’t merely their features and Bella being smaller; it was also their characters. Bella was an irrepressible imp who would take hold of life with both hands, while Carrie seemed far too serious for a young woman about to embark on her first Season. It would have been hard for her being the oldest, trying to ease the grief of the two younger ones. It seemed she’d become a little mother to them, which was admirable. But she should be light-hearted and happy at twenty.

  Perhaps he was selfish to leave Carrie’s debut entirely in Gwen’s hands. He asked a lot of his sister. There would be times when Gwen would wish to seek his advice.