Page 39 of Marry in Haste
“No brandy, I’m afraid, sir, but there’s some parsnip wine if you fancy that.” She smiled at him in a motherly fashion. “Now don’t you fret about Miss George. It does no good, sir, no good at all. She goes her own ways, that lass. Always has and always will.” And she shuffled off.
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” Cal muttered as his niece disappeared over the horizon.
Damn Henry for a neglectful parent. Why the hell hadn’t he told Papa about the girl? Papa might have been a cold man, but he had a strong sense of family—and duty—and would gladly have taken a legitimate granddaughter in to raise with his own daughters.
Instead Henry had treated his only living child like a dirty little secret and left her to sink or swim on her own. Well, that would change.
This was no way for a young woman of good birth to live, in an isolated, run-down old farmhouse with no company but an old woman, a dog and a horse—and no income. And with half the hunting fraternity of the district apparently baying for her blood.
He sighed. Georgiana was even more undisciplined than his sisters. Putting them together would be like trying to put a fire out by adding oil to it. But he had no choice.
He swore under his breath. Dealing with two spirited young Rutherford females had nearly driven him to drink. What the hell was he going to do with three?
He had to take Georgiana back to Bath with him and prepare her—somehow—to enter her proper milieu. Or rather, pay someone to prepare her. He thought of the long-legged teacher again. She’d know how to do it. He’d have to increase his offer, make it worth her while.
***
He wrote a note to Aunt Dottie and told her to expect him back in a few days, along with a previouslyunknown niece. He wrote another letter to Phipps, explaining the situation, and a note to the lawyer Chiswick, asking him to call at Willowbank Farm at his earliest convenience.
He rang for Martha and Hawkins and gave them instructions to go into the village, post the letters, deliver the note and purchase whatever was needed for them all to be comfortable for the next few days—food, household goods, stable supplies, whatever.
He handed Martha a sum that made her eyes bulge. “And of course, anything you might require for yourself, Mrs. Scarrat. I will be making arrangements to have your back wages paid to you, but in the meantime, purchase whatever you want.”
As they turned to leave, he thought of something else. “Mrs. Scarrat, am I to understand that the clothing my niece wore today is her usual attire?”
“You mean breeches and boots? Yes, sir, I mean, my lord.”
“Then be so good as to purchase her a couple of dresses. And whatever else goes with and under them.” He handed her an extra few banknotes.
The old woman’s eyes widened. “Dresses, sir? But Miss George won’t wear dresses. She won’t wear nothing except breeches and boots.”
Cal gave her a steely smile. “We’ll see about that.”
***
Chiswick the lawyer came first thing the next morning. At first he was inclined to be stiff and formal and clearly prepared for battle, but once Cal had made it clear that he was disgusted by his brother’s neglect of his daughter and wanted to do right by her and her servants, the silver-haired old gentleman rapidly unbent.
“I don’t understand why Henry kept the marriage so secret.”
“She wasn’t of his station,” Chiswick told him. “Perfectly respectable family—good yeomen farmers—but not the right kind of wife for the heir to the Earl of Ashendon.”
“Do you think she tried to entrap Henry into marriage?”
Chiswick shook his head. “Nobody around here knewwho he really was until long after the wedding. He came among us as plain Mr. Rutherford—rusticating, I believe the young bloods used to call it. Well, he took one look at pretty young Mary Foster and made a beeline for her. Sought her out at every opportunity.”
He sighed regretfully. “A lovely girl she was, just seventeen. Pretty as a picture, sweet-tempered and innocent as a spring lamb.” He shot Cal a glance from under gray beetling brows. “Your brother seduced her, the blackguard.”
Cal nodded. “But he must have cared for her enough to marry her.”
Chiswick snorted. “No choice in the matter. Mary’s father, George Foster, was a formidable fellow, for all that he was a farmer. Once he realized what had happened, he marched Henry up to the church, instructed the vicar to call the banns and kept Henry locked in the cellar until his wedding day.” He chuckled. “Henry was beside himself with rage at first—I went along as legal counsel to draw up the settlements—but the moment Foster demanded to know who Henry’s father was and threatened to go and fetch him, Henry quietened down and went through the service like a lamb.”
“My father was also a formidable man,” Cal said. “He would have made Henry pay.” If not for seducing an innocent, for getting caught. “At the very least he would have cut off Henry’s very generous allowance. Henry would have hated that.”
“We found out who he really was after Mary had died giving birth to young George.” Chiswick set his cup down and sighed. “I’d written to let him know, of course—” He saw Cal’s surprised look and added, “Oh, yes, he left her a few weeks after the wedding.”
Cal swore beneath his breath. A brother to be proud of indeed. Abandoning his pregnant seventeen-year-old wife.
“I went up to London to notify him in person—and to point out his duty to the babe. That’s when I found out who he really was, that he was the heir to the Earl of Ashendon,” the old man said in a level voice. “The notice of his betrothal to Lady Mariah Eglinton appeared in theMorning Postexactly one month later.”
