Francesca Shaw - The Unconventional Miss Dane Read online

  Drearily Antonia unfolded the new sheet which proved to be The Times.

  For want of a better occupation, she began to scan the advertisements.

  She read aloud: "To be let for six or twelve months certain, a genteel FAMILY HOUSE, handsomely furnished,.. A young PERSON about twenty years of age, of respectable connections, wishes for a situation in a ladies' school.. A GENTLEMAN, late returned from the East Indies, seeks to LEASE a small country estate within' fifty miles of the Capital, comprising both UNFURNISHED HOUSE and PLEASURE GROUNDS. Apply to Rumbold and Gardiner, Solicitors..."

  Antonia laid the paper aside with a sigh. That would be one solution, if only she could bear to see strangers at Rye End Hall. Or, of course, if it were in any condition to be leased.

  Donna reappeared from the garden, saying, "That Jem is a good, willing boy! Show him any task and he sets to with a will. Is there anything of interest in the paper, my dear?" ~

  "I have not yet looked at the news, I was simply running my eye over the advertisements. Listen to this one." She read aloud the item concerning the country house required for lease.

  ~But that is the very solution. to our problem! " cried Donna. " If you let the house, it would remain in your possession and the rental would allow you to have the repairs done and the grounds set to order.

  " She talked on, warming to her theme. " If it were a repairing lease, it would free you from those costs and you could set the fences and land and the tenants' cottages in order. Then there would be a steady income from those lands as well. "

  Perversely, as Donna's enthusiasm waxed, Antonia's waned and she began to see all the disadvantages of the situation. "How would it appear if I let the house? It would be a clear indication of my penury. And to see strangers in my home? And all the repairs to be done, and the grounds in such disordermwho would look at it? And," she added with finality, 'where would we ii veT

  Donna ~vas prevented from answering by a commotion at the back door.

  Jem's voice Could be heard plaintively protesting, "But, my lord, I'd better tell the mistress you're here..."

  "I will announce myself," Marcus Arlington replied coldly, stalking into the kitchen as he did so. He was followed closely by his head keeper, Sparrow, who in his turn was holding a man by the collar.

  Antonia leapt to her feet, startled by this unexpected eruption of men into her kitchen. "My lord! What is the meaning of this intrusion?"

  "I do apologise for disturbing you in your..." he cast a cold eye around the homely kitchen 'living room. But I regret it is necessary to deal with this matter irmnediately. "

  He gestured to. Sparrow, who pushed his captive forward roughly.

  "This, I believe, is one of your tenants.~ Antonia moved forward, seeing, with some that the man had a bloody nose. " Indeed, it is Josiah Wilkins from the cottages at Brook End. Josiah, what has happened to you? Has this person struck you? " turned angrily on the gamekeeper, recognising him as the one who had so impudently manhandled her. "You!

  How dare you come on to my land and assault my tenants! "

  "Sparrow was on my land, madam, and about his duties for which I pay him." Lord Arlington was grim.

  Antonia turned a contemptuous shoulder on both master and man and spoke to her tenant calmly. "Tell me what occurred, Josiah, and how you came by your injury."

  "Well, miss, it was like this," he began readily enough, although with a wary eye on the keeper, "I was shooting pigeons---got a brace, too, but they came down the wrong side of the brook. I didn't have my old dog with me, see, so I waded across to pick 'em up and this bullying varmint jumped on me."

  "You watch your language--I've-got the measure of you, Josiah Wilkins,"

  Sparrow threatened. "Who's to say where you shot those birds? I don't believe a word of it, my lord. All these Wilkinses are a parcel of idle rogues."

  "Hold your tongue, man!" Antonia snapped, remembering again with a shudder the keeper's insinuating touch on her arm. "Speak when you are spoken to in my house!"

  Sparrow threw her a darkling look and slouched back into the shadows.

  "You may not welcome our intrusion, Miss Dane, but I am sure you will agree that I have every right to detain a poacher, and the man 'is condemned out of his own mouth." .

  "I agree you have every right to apprehend a poacher, my lord: however, this man is not a poacher. He was shooting my game, on my land and with my permission. And forgive me, for I imagine my knowledge of the law is not as extensive as yours, but I know he was within his rights to retrieve the birds from your land, providing he did no damage."

  "What nonsense is this?" Marcus exploded.

  "Kindly moderate your tone, my lord! All my tenants have my permission to shoot, trap and fish over my land. In the absence of crops in my fields, I harvest whatever my and yields for the benefit of both myself and my people. You were the one who told me to look to my starving tenants, after all!"

  Donna was talking in the doorway to Jem, who came forward to help Wilkins out. "See that he gets home safely, please, Jem. And see if you can find his pigeons, will you?" she added, with a vituperative glance at Sparrow.

  "Sparrow, leave us," Marcus ordered between clenched teeth.

  As the man closed the kitchen door behind him, Antonia remarked conversationally, "I presume, my lord, that you will be placing that man on a charge of common assault for breaking Wilkins' nose?"

  ~Do not try my patience further, madam," Marcus ground out. " This is madness! Are you so penurious that you must give every ne'er-do-well in the county licence to poach on your lands? "

  "My hard-working and deserving tenants are merely harvesting the land as I have explained. They are not responsible for my, father's recklessness, but they have to suffer the consequences. I do what little I can to mitigate their poverty."

  "And your own," he added quietly. "I do not understand your stubbornness, Miss Dane; I have made you a fair proposal to buy, and I would offer you a fair price--for the house as well, if you would accept it. It would allow you to return to London and to live as a gentlewoman should. Not like this!" His scornful eye once more swept the bare flagged floor, the scrubbed deal table with the shabby chairs drawn up to it.

  "Are you suggesting that this household is anything less than respectable, my lord?" Donna had re-entered the kitchen unobserved, her small figure bristling with indignation at the insult.

  "Forgive.me, Miss Donaldson," he said with a satirical twist to his lips. "I have no doubt that the moral tone of this establishment is as a nunnery. However, it strikes me that Miss Dane might have a better chance of catching herself a husband were she in London,"

  Antonia had, for the most fleeting of moments, allowed herself to indulge in thoughts of the pleasures of living in Town: shopping in the Burlington Arcade, driving in the Park, congenial evenings at Almack's where she could dance the night away, her card full, But Marcus A! ling ton crude remarks about her lack of success in the Marriage Mart brought her swiftly to her senses.

  "Catch myself a husband?" She pulled herself up to her full height, eyes sparking fire.

  Donna, watching from the doorway thought she had rarely seen her charge looking more magnificent, despite her old gown and simply dressed hair.

  "Let me assure you, sir, that a husband is something I regret the lack of not one whit!" Her colour was up, flooding her naturally creamy skin with a warm glow, emphasising the fine strong bones of her features. Her f~gure was slender but, under the stress of strong emotion, her bosom rising and falling, she looked Junoesque.

  Marcus, too, was stirred. "Take it from a disinterested observer, ma'am, a husband to school and curb you would be a most desirable thing! Very well, then, you have made your hard bed--lie upon it.

  Perhaps after a country winter, you will apply a more reasoned judgement to my offer." He paused ~o pull on his gloves. "I can wait."

  "Then you will wait a long time, my lord. For I intend to lease this house and grounds forthwith to a most respectable ten
ant."

  "Indeed?" Marcus's dark brows drew together. "And supposing you find a person deluded enough to take on this ramshackle estate, where do you intend to live?"

  Antonia hesitated, at a loss. He had provoked her into a wild statement of defiance and now she had no answer to his very pertinent question.

  "Why, in the Dower House, of course," supplied Miss Donaldson calmly, from the shadows.

  Chapter Four

  Marcus,s hard laugh rang round the kitchen. "A neat device, ladies, I must congratulate you upon your optimism."

  "Optimism?" Antonia repeated with dangerous calm. "Why describe a perfectly practical solution so dismissively sir? Or do you wish me gone from here so much?" She realised, as soon as the words were out, that she wanted to know the answer to that latter question very badly indeed.

  "Your whereabouts, Miss Dane, are of little concern to me, provided that you are not inciting your tenants to lawlessness as this episode would suggest." Marcus smiled thinly as he pulled on his riding gauntlets. "I shall watch with interest your attempts to gull some Citizens into taking on this ... liability of a house. I wish you good day, ladies." He nodded curtly to them both and stalked out.

  As the door closed behind him, Antonia clutched the edge of the table to support her shaking legs. The encounter had affected her composure more than she would have thought possible. Marcus Arlington was having the most deleterious effect on her equilibrium: she wanted him to like her, to support her efforts to keep her family estates together despite overwhelming odds.

  And yet he was so inexplicably hostile. She could only conclude that he disliked her--which, she was honest enough to realise, was a disappointment--but that he wanted her lands badly enough to maintain the connection.

  "Well, that was a nasty show of temper," remarked Miss Donaldson as she calmly tidied away the tea things. "But I suppose we should be thankful for, after all, it provoked me into thinking of a solution. Do you truly think it is feasible for us to move to the Dower House?"

  Antonia met Miss Donaldson's bird-Y~kc eyes, bright with excitement.

  "But, Donna, I thought that was just something you said upon the spur of the moment to irk his lordship. Were you truly serious?"

  "Yes, Antonia, I do believe we could live most comfortably there, for from what you told me it is just of a size for the two of us. However, it grieves me to admit it," she added with a wry smile~ 'but his lordship is quite correct about this house. How are we to lease it in its present state of repair? We have just agreed we do not have the resources to make it habitable. "

  Antonia got to her feet and began to pace up and down the flagged floor, her underlip caught in her teeth. Where indeed were they to find the money? She passed her small income and the few pieces of jewellery she had inherited under review. Even with Donna's tiny pension it would not do. There was only one recourse. It came hard, for the example of her late father was ever before her, a man mined by debt--but she had little choice.

  Taking a deep breath, 'l shall borrow the money," Antonia announced decisively. 'l can put the estate up for security and repay the loan from the rent."

  "Oh, dear--' Miss Donaldson creased her brow '--debt makes me so nervous! Only consider your late parent's predicament and what it has cost you to retrieve it."

  Antonia remembered only too well the awful moment when their man of law had explained how little remained of the previously substantial family fortune once Sir Humphrey's debts had been quit. But she had little alternative other than to borrow.

  She leaned across the table and explained earnestly, "But this is different, Donna. Father borrowed with no intention of repaying the money, unless by gaming! I do not intend to continue borrowing beyond this one contingency; look upon it as an investment, which should soon realise a return. Pass me Pigot's Directory and let us see which banks there are in Berkhamsted to whom I may apply."

  They scanned the commercial directory together. "There is only one,"

  Miss Donaldson said, running her finger down the column. "Perhaps it would be better if you went into Aylesbury."

  "But look--it says here that this bank is an agent for Praed and Company in London: nothing could be better, for they act for Great Aunt Honoria.;

  "You do not' intend to deal directly with the bank, I hope, it would he most unseemly," Miss Donaldson admonished. ~ey may have come to a pretty pass, but for a young lady of breeding to enter a place of business was unthinkable, "You will be writing to your man of business, will you not?"

  "No, for it will cause a delay we can ill afford. I shall go the day after tomorrow," Antonia added decisively; "I shall write now to the manager and make an appointment. Jem can take the letter. "

  Miss Donaldson recognised when Antonia had made up her mind and knew all too well it would be fruitless to argue. "Very well, my dear, if you insist, but I cannot like it. However, needs must: we shall attend to your wardrobe. If you go into town with your kid gloves in the state they are at present, our poverty will be only too evident to all!"

  The kid gloves, after much sponging and brushing, were all a lady could desire. Antonia stood on the steps of the Aylesbury Branch Bank wishing her courage were as easily restored,. for despite her brave words to Miss Donaldson she was feeling decidedly apprehensive, It was simply not done for ladies of quality to deal with matters of business, and she had neither knowledge nor experience of such proceedings.

  Through the discreet veil which Donna had insisted on attaching to her bonnet, she stared at the burnished brass plate that gleamed brightly despite the dullness of the day: Agents for Praed's Bank--James Pethybridge, Manager. Antonia stepped down again and took a few agitated paces along the pavement, glad of its height above the roadway, which was muddy from the day's light drizzle. Even the dismal weather conspired against her courage today.

  Perhaps she ought to walk along to the King's Arms and bespeak a cup of coffee in a private parlour. Even as she hesitated, the church tower clock chimed close by. Eleven o'clock, the hour set for her appointment in Mr. Pethybridge's reply; Antonia swallowed hard and raised her hand to the knocker.

  The clerk ushered her into the banker's inner sanctum with due deference but with a sideways glance that betrayed his surprise at finding her unaccompanied. As she shook hands and sat down, Antonia was gratified to see only a look of polite enquiry on the banker's face, for she had been fearing outright rejection, if not incredulity at the thought of a woman carrying out her own transactions.

  Miss Donaldson's assiduous work on her walking dress and frogged jacket had obviously passed muster, and the addition of a new ostrich plume to her bonnet had transformed its appearance. She smoothed down the garnet red cloth of her skirts and smiled back at the banker with a confidence she was far from feeling.

  Mr. ~Pethybridge was an amiable-looking gentleman in his early fifties, rotund and greying. His avuncular manner encouraged Antonia as she began to explain her circumstances and the nature of her request, becoming more confident and persuasive as she spoke.

  Twenty minutes later, with her optimism and spirits quite dashed, he ushered her out into the main office. "I do hope you appreciate, Miss Dane, the force of my arguments," he said fluently with the air Of a man long practised in turning down ill-considered requests for advances. "It would be most unwise for a young lady, circumstanced as you are, to enter into such an arrangement. Indeed, it would be most irresponsible of me to encourage you to take on such a debt at this time..."

  He broke off as he became aware that another visitor was speaking to his clerk. "I do beg your pardon, Miss Dane." Mr. Pethybridge was flushed with embarrassment at having been caught discussing business in the presence of others. "Allow me to see you out." He ushered her. towards the door, bowing deferentially as he passed the newcomer. "Good morning, my lord, I shall be with you directly."

  "Good morning, Pethybridge." Antonia started at the familiar, lazily deep tones and struggled to compose her features as she passed Marcus Arlington with a slig
ht inclination of her head. She regretted not replacing her veil.

  "Miss Dane, good day. I hope I find you well? May I be so bold as to enquire if your business has prospered?"

  There was little doubt that his lordship's business prospered there was no sign of the angry man in country riding clothes of the previous day.

  Marcus Arlington had obviously driven into town; his multi-caped driving coat was carelessly thrown open over immaculately cut, long-tailed coat and breeches. His boots shone like ebony and had miraculously avoided contact with the mud that, despite her best efforts, had spattered Antonia's kid half-boots.

  He had also penni~ his valet to trim some of the unruliness from his dark blond hair where previously it had curled unfashionably long on his collar.

  Antonia, realising she was staring, swallowed a bitter retort, brought up her chin defiantly, and replied, "It has not prospered, as you will no doubt be unsurprised to hear, my lord."

  "Indeed? I am sorry to hear that." Ignoring Antonia's disbelieving expression, Marcus continued, "Perhaps I could offer some assistance?