Page 43 of The Magpie Lord
“You’ll be here a while, then,” said Vernon dryly.
Crane smiled at that. “Not if I can help it. I’m actually just here to deal with the legal matters around my inheritance.”
“I thought I heard you were moving back to Piper?”
Crane shook his head. “If I stay in England, which is not certain, it will be in London. I’m not cut out for country life.”
“Oh, but you must admit the country has some attractions,” Lady Thwaite remarked from his side, and insinuated a hand onto his arm. With an effort, Crane didn’t throw it off, but he did move his arm away, putting his hands behind his back.
“I dare say it has many attractions, but not for me,” he said. “I like cities.”
“Naturally.” Lady Thwaite smiled. “But what if Lady Crane prefers a country home?”
“There is no Lady Crane.”
“Ah, but some day, she may—”
“There is no Lady Crane, there is no Lady Crane in waiting, and I do not have any expectation of a Lady Cranesome day,” said Crane, biting the words out. “So the wishes of this hypothetical lady are hardly relevant.”
Glances shot between the Millways. Mr. Haining stopped rocking on his heels for a second, and Helen Thwaite’s lips pressed together, colour coming to her cheeks. Lady Thwaite gave a wide smile.
“Of course not, my lord,” she said. “Single gentlemen never like to think of being caught in parson’s mousetrap, as Sir James likes to call it.” She gave a little laugh, in which some of the others joined, but Crane did not.
Her smile stretched, and she extended her hand invitingly. Crane kept his hands folded behind his back. Lady Thwaite’s eyes flicked to his face. “My dear lord,” she said clearly enough to be heard by others, holding out her hand commandingly. “Let us have a comfortable talk. Do give me your arm.”
Crane had to fight to keep the revulsion off his face. The horror of the jack, and what had happened to Merrick, and Stephen’s manipulation combined into a sickening whole, so that the idea of this bloody woman touching his skin—
And Stephen wasn’t even paying attention. He was over the other side of the room, talking animatedly to Mrs. Vernon, his promise to defend Crane against fluence forgotten, and, perversely, it was a flare of hurt anger at that abandonment that made Crane extend his arm. He crooked it, but Lady Thwaite’s fingers immediately found the bare skin of his hand.
She led him over to a sofa and sat with him, murmuring. “My dear lord, listen to me. You’re here to see my daughter. She’s very lovely, very charming. And you need to marry, don’t you? You need to marry and you will choose Helen because she is lovely and willing and you need a wife...”
She muttered on in that vein. Crane contemplated her for a moment, then looked over at Stephen’s back. Stephen casually lifted a hand to scratch his ear. His fingers gave a quick flutter in Crane’s direction, like a tiny wave, and a bubble of something intensely happy opened up in the middle of Crane’s anger. Lady Thwaite was comingnowhere near his mind, because Stephen would not let her, and suddenly her murmured commands seemed not threatening but simply ludicrous.
He tolerated it a moment longer, till it seemed clear she was intent on nothing but a rich marriage for her daughter, politely disengaged his arm and rose. “Thank you, madam, that was most informative,” he said courteously. “And I shall certainly take your views under advisement, although I fear you may be doomed to disappointment.”
He left Lady Thwaite staring after him and went over to talk to Vernon again, as the only person present he didn’t actively despise, until they were called in to dinner.
It was an intensely tedious evening. Lady Thwaite was coldly angry, and Helen’s prettiness didn’t conceal her building fury at Crane’s failure to pay court. Sir James told a succession of hunting stories that were of no interest to anyone. The Millways were primarily concerned with establishing how many titled people they knew and trying to find mutual acquaintances with Crane, who lost all patience at the third reference to “your dear father”.
“My father was no dearer to me than I to him,” he said bluntly. “I couldn’t tell you which of us was happier when I went to the other side of the world, but I assure you, I would not be within five thousand miles of here if he were still alive.”
Mrs. Millway went pink with shock. “Oh, but he was yourfather.”
Mr. Haining nodded earnestly. “Surely there should be filial love—forgiveness—especially in a noble family—”
“No,” said Crane.
Mrs. Millway opened her mouth and closed it again in the face of that uncompromising monosyllable. Helen Thwaite gave a tinkling laugh, with a slightly grating note to it. “Goodness me, my lord, you’re terribly brusque. Is that how the best people speak in China?”
“If you mean the aristocracy, Miss Thwaite, I wouldn’t know. I’m a trader.”
“A tradesman. Dear me.” Helen was bright-eyed and highly coloured, and her voice was vicious. “And what about your little friend? It’s so interesting that you can’t spare any time for courtesy to your neighbours but you’ve plenty of leisure for aguest. What exactly is Mr. Day doing for you?”
Her voice was loud. Heads turned involuntarily across the table, and Crane deduced from the various expressions of horror, embarrassment, and excitement that his reputation had once again preceded him. Oddly enough, nobody looked at Stephen.
“Resolving some rather dull legal points about local issues,” said Crane calmly, addressing Miss Thwaite as if unconscious of anyone else’s interest. “Conveyances, I believe. Or possibly estouffements.”
Vernon, the solicitor, coughed into his wine glass and loudly asked Mr. Haining about some parish argument. The Millways dragged in a not terribly relevant anecdote about a duke of their friend’s acquaintance, the point of which was that the true mark of good breeding was courtesy and putting one’s social inferiors at ease. Crane greeted this with a wolfish smile.
