Much Ado About You

Tess felt a hard knot in her chest begin to loosen, just a trifle.

This burly man who had hired four nursemaids for four little girls and was never without a bumper of brandy … he wasn’t someone to fear.

Tess looked down at the worn linen of his shirtsleeve and said, ‘I want to thank you, Your Grace, for accepting this guardianship.’ She swallowed, but it had to be said. ‘My father was an improvident man, and sometimes he traded upon acquaintance in a way that must create a burden.’

He looked genuinely surprised. ‘Don’t think twice about it, m’dear.’

‘I’m quite serious,’ Tess persisted. ‘I -’

‘So am I,’ the duke said. ‘I must be named guardian in at least twenty wills, Miss Essex. I am a duke, after all, and I’ve never seen that I had a reason to refuse such a request.’

‘Oh,’ Tess said, shocked to the bone. It seemed her father wasn’t the only man to take advantage of a slender acquaintance with Holbrook.

He patted her hand, for all the world as if he were a middle-aged uncle. ‘Not to fear, Miss Essex. I’m certain we can figure out this guardianship business amongst us. It should be an easy enough business to find a governess for young Josie. Finding a chaperone that we can bear to live with might take a bit more thinking. But there’s nothing to worry about.’

To Tess’s mind, worry had been her sole emotion of last few months, most of which had been occupied by squabbling over the possibility that their guardian was a reasonable, kindly man versus a half-cracked horseman. And to each and every nervous question Tess had said stoutly, ‘I’m certain he will be an estimable gentleman. After all, Papa chose him with careful forethought.’

Lord knows that wasn’t the truth. On his deathbed, Papa had grasped her hand, and said, ‘Not to worry, Tess. I’ve an optimal man to look after you all. Asked him just after poor old Monkton up and died last year. I knew Holbrook years ago.’

‘Why has he never visited, Papa?’

‘Never met him again,’ her father had said, looking so white against the pillow that Tess’s heart had clenched with fear. ‘Not to worry, lass. ‘I’ve seen his name mentioned time and again in Sporting Magagne. He’ll take good care of Wanton, Bluebell, and the rest. Said he would. Wrote me as much. And I sent him Starling to seal the bargain.’

‘I’m sure he will, Papa,’ Tess had said, putting down her sweet, feckless Papa’s hand with a loving squeeze since he seemed to have drifted off to sleep. So this duke would take good care of Papa’s beloved horseflesh – but what of his daughters?

He opened his eyes again though. ‘You’ll be right and tight with Holbrook, Tess. Take care of them for me, won’t you?’

She picked up his hand again hastily, trying to force back the tears crowding her throat.

‘Feel as if I’m looking at you through a snowstorm,’ he had said, his voice just a whisper of sound.

‘Oh, Papa,’ Tess whispered. ‘I do love you.’

He shook his head, obviously gathering himself. ‘I’ll be seeing your mother, I’ve no doubt.’ There was a little smile on his face. Papa was always very good at looking forward to a happy event. Sometimes she thought he was happier in the week before a big race, when he had something to anticipate, than when he’d won a race. Not that he won very often.

‘Yes, Papa,’ she whispered, brushing the tears away as they coursed down her cheeks.

‘My lass,’ he said, and she didn’t know whether he was talking of her or her mother. Then, ‘Don’t forget that Wanton likes apple-mash.’ And, again, ‘Take care of them for me, Tess?’

‘Of course I will, Papa. I’ll inform His Grace immediately on our arrival about Wanton’s weak stomach.’

‘I didn’t mean that, Tessa,’ her father said, and this smile was for her, not for her mother. ‘Annabel’s too beautiful, you know. And sweet Josie.’ There was silence for a moment, then he said, ‘Maitland’s not right for Imogen. Wild thing, that boy.’

There were tears running down Tess’s wrists.

‘You’re …’ His voice faltered, then he said, rather dreamily. ‘Tess. Those apples …’

But he had gone to sleep, then. And though she and her sisters had told him of the stables until they were hoarse, and Josie had brought a bowl of steaming apple-mash into the bedchamber, thinking it might arouse him, he didn’t wake. After a few days, he slipped away in the midst of the night.

The funeral passed like a grey dream. Their plump cousin, who had inherited the estate, appeared with a clucking wife and two maiden aunts in tow; Tess did her best to make them comfortable in a house that hadn’t even one decent feather bed. When the duke’s secretary finally arrived to announce their fate, she managed not to scream questions about his master but waited patiently. When that secretary spent the first full week of his visit arranging for their father’s horses to be sent to England with all possible comfort, her questions seemed unnecessary. The horses left long before they did. Could their unknown guardian have made it clearer where his priorities lay?

So even as she reassured Josie, and told Imogen to stop talking of Draven Maitland or she would strangle her with the only ribbon Annabel had left, Tess had worried, and worried, until the lump of grief in her chest seemed to turn to permanent stone.

She’d just as soon have nothing to do with a horse-mad male, ever again. It was galling to find that their futures were utterly dependent on just such a man. It made her think fierce thoughts of her darling papa, and that made her feel guilty, and guilt made her feel irritable.

Looking at the Duke of Holbrook now, there was no question that their guardian was indeed horse-mad. With that hair and clothing, he was probably garden-variety mad and no need for the adjective.

But he was kind, too. And not lecherous.

He didn’t seem to have their father’s easy way of ignoring their comforts. He certainly had no obligation to invite them to live in his house, nor to treat them like real relatives.

Perhaps she’d been too hasty. Perhaps – just perhaps – all men weren’t mad in the same ways.

Three

A few hours later, Tess lay under the damp cloth that the duke’s housekeeper herself had placed over her eyes. The faint smell of lemons drifted to her nose. She could hear the sounds of a large household around her. It wasn’t the echoing, empty sound of her father’s house, marked only by the harsh rap of boots on the bare floor (Papa had sold the carpets long ago), but a faint hum that added to the smell of furniture rubbed with lemon oil, and sheets dried in the sun, and a mattress that had been turned once a season.

‘It’s time for a family council,’ said a cheerful voice. The side of the bed dipped as Annabel sat down.

Tess lifted up the cloth over her eyes and peered at her sister. ‘I only just lay down,’ she objected.

‘No, you didn’t,’ her sister retorted. ‘You’ve been lying there like a plum pudding under a steaming cloth for at least two hours, and we must talk before dressing for the evening meal. Here come Josie and Imogen.’

The girls climbed up onto the bed, just as if they were in Tess’s bedchamber at home, where they’d spent many an evening curled under the covers so as to stay warm, talking endlessly of their future, and their papa, and their horses.

‘All right,’ Tess murmured, yawning.

‘I shall marry him,’ Annabel announced, once they were all settled.

‘Who?’ Tess asked. She put the cloth on the bedside table and pushed herself upright against the pillows.

‘The duke, of course!’ Annabel said. ‘One of us must become the duchess, obviously, since he doesn’t seem to have one at hand. Duchess of Holbrook. The man isn’t married, although -’

‘Holbrook may well be promised in marriage,’ Imogen pointed out. ‘Look at Draven.’ Lord Maitland had been promised in marriage for two years or more, without showing the slightest interest in progressing toward the altar.

‘I doubt it,’ Annabel said. ‘And if not, I shall marry him. That way, my husband can give each of you excellent dowries. Perhaps you won’t marry as well as I, since there are only eight dukes in all England, not counting the royal dukes. But we shall find titled men for each of you.’

‘What a sacrifice,’ Josie said acidly. ‘I suppose you read all of Debrett’s in order to discover the names of those eight dukes?’

‘I shall steel myself to the task,’ Annabel said. ‘And mind you, given our guardian’s looks, I do consider it a sacrifice. The man will be positively potbellied before he’s fifty, if he doesn’t watch out.’

Imogen rolled her eyes, but Josie leaped in before her. ‘Sacrifice, Annabel? You’d marry an eighty-year-old man if you, could make yourself a duchess! Your Grace!’ she added for good measure.

‘I most certainly would not!’ Annabel retorted. Then she laughed. ‘Well, only if the man was very, very wealthy.’

‘You’re naught more than a money-grubbing flirt,’ Josie observed. ‘And who’s to say that this duke is any richer than Papa was? After all, Papa was a viscount, but his title was naught more than tin when it came to his pocket!’

‘If Holbrook has no money, I shan’t marry him,’ Annabel said with a delicate shudder. ‘I’d rather slay myself than marry a man as out at the elbows as Papa was. But don’t be foolish, Josie. Look at this house! Holbrook is obviously deep in the pockets.’

‘Don’t be disrespectful of your father,’ Tess broke in. ‘Annabel, truly, the duke may well be affianced, and it would be best not to think in such an improper fashion of the man who was kind enough to agree to be our guardian.’

Annabel raised one eyebrow and took a small mirror from her reticule. ‘Perhaps I’ll make him regret that arrangement, then,’ she said, rubbing her lips with a scrap of Spanish paper that she’d bought in the village before they left Scotland.

‘You’re revolting,’ Josie said.

‘And you’re a squib,’ Annabel replied. ‘I’m being practical. One of us has to marry, and immediately. Imogen has been telling us for two years now that she means to marry Maitland, and Tess has never made the slightest push to marry anyone – so that leaves me. One of us has to marry and take the others to her house. That’s what we always said.’

‘Tess could marry anyone she chose!’ Josie said stoutly. ‘She’s the most beautiful of us all. Don’t you agree, Imogen?’

Imogen nodded, but she had her arms clasped around her knees, and she was clearly paying not a whit of attention to the conversation. ‘She may marry anyone, other than Draven, of course,’ she said dreamily. ‘Just think, I might see him in a matter of hours … minutes really.’

Annabel ignored her comment, which was pretty much the way the girls had acted every time Imogen mentioned Maitland’s name for the past two years. ‘I agree with you as to Tess’s beauty,’ she told Josie, ‘but men aren’t prone to marry penniless girls who show no interest. Yet I am interested in marriage. Very interested.’

‘In the institution, not the man!’ Josie retorted.

Annabel shrugged. ‘Imogen is romantic enough for the rest of us. It’s Papa’s fault. He made me keep the books for all these years, and now numbers float before my eyes every time I think about matrimony.’

‘He didn’t precisely make you keep the books,’ Tess put in, a trifle wearily. She was tired of defending their father from Annabel’s charges, but Josie took any criticism of their papa very badly. There was no way to sugarcoat the fact that their papa had discovered Annabel had a gift for figures at the age of thirteen and dumped the entire financial accounting of the estate on her slender shoulders.

‘The important point is that I shan’t be keeping books any longer. I don’t want to think of numbers, or bills, or unpaid accounts ever again in my life. Thank goodness, men are silly enough to overlook my lack of dowry.’

‘You could try for a little modesty,’ Josie needled.

‘You could try for a little maturity,’ Annabel retorted. ‘I’m not being immodest. I’m simply being practical. One of us must marry, and I have the attributes that make men dazed enough to overlook lack of dowry. I’m not going to pretend to possess ladylike virtues that I don’t have in front of you three. It’s too late for that. If Papa truly wanted us to think like ladies, he wouldn’t have trained us to do exactly the opposite.’

‘Papa did wish us to be ladies!’ Josie protested. ‘He taught us to speak just like English ladies, didn’t he?’

‘Poppycock,’ Annabel said, but there wasn’t any real spite in her voice, just an amused acceptance. ‘Josie, if Papa had given a fig for his daughters’ futures as ladies, our lives would have been quite different. For one thing, he wouldn’t have pissed in the chamber pot right there in the dining room.’

‘Annabel!’ Tess said. ‘Keep your voice down.’

But Annabel just grinned at her. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I fully intend to counterfeit every ladylike quality that exists, until at least a week after I convince some bacon-brained peer to marry me and hand over his pocketbook.’

Tess sighed. It wasn’t easy to be an elder sister to Annabel, with her startling tawny hair and brazen belief in her own magnificence. The problem was that she and Imogen truly did look like the princesses in the fairy tale ‘Snow White and Rose Red’.

‘Well, you needn’t set your cap at Holbrook,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he’d make the best husband in the world.’

‘If he’s rich enough, he’s good enough. Frankly, I can’t marry just anyone,’ Annabel said. ‘I’ve very expensive tastes.’ She hopped off the bed and examined herself in the glass. ‘I may never have had a chance to indulge those tastes, but I’m certain they’ll be expensive when I do indulge them. I have no objection to considering the Earl of Mayne if he shows as much depth in the pocket as our guardian.’

‘You’re being shocking for the mere sake of it,’ Tess said.

Annabel ignored her, as she had ignored every piece of advice that directed itself toward proper ladylike behaviour. ‘The duke is a better bet. Higher title, and all that. I shall reel him in,’ she announced, ‘then I shall go directly to London. From the day I am married, I shall wear nothing but silk next to my skin.’

‘There’s a word for women like you,’ Josie observed.

‘And that word is happy,’ Annabel said. It was hard to offend Annabel, even though her smallest sister devoted herself to the task. Annabel was too – Annabel. Too sure of herself, too glowing, too sensuous, too loving. Too desired. ‘I can hardly believe that we have finally found our way out of that backwater and almost to London. I don’t mind admitting that there were times that I despaired. Papa’s schemes, after all, never came to anything, for all he kept promising that he’d take us to London for the season.’

As far as Tess could ascertain by staring in the mirror, she and Annabel certainly looked alike enough to be sisters, but their effect on men was utterly different. Something about Imogen and Annabel drove men into imbecilic paralysis in their presence, and whatever it was, she, Tess, didn’t seem to have it. They were all beautiful, thanks to their mama, who had been the most lovely debutante in London until she threw herself away on a horsemad, bankrupt Scottish viscount. But Tess never reduced anyone into stammering silence the way Annabel and Imogen did.

Tess sometimes thought the problem was that she not only looked like their mother but that she remembered her. Annabel would never speak of their mother, and Imogen and Josie had been too small to have clear memories. But Tess remembered. And remembered. And somehow since Papa died, it was all wound up together in her chest … missing her mama so much that her chest hurt, then missing her father with the same pulse of pain.

‘Now, if I marry the duke,’ Annabel said briskly, ‘one of us ought to marry that earl our guardian has so kindly provided.’

‘Better the earl than the duke,’ Imogen said. ‘I don’t think Holbrook has combed his hair since last Tuesday. Not that I’m marrying either of them.’

‘I’m too young to marry anyone,’ Josie said with satisfaction. ‘And even if I weren’t, the Earl of Mayne would never want to marry someone like me. There’s something rather arrogant about him, don’t you think?’

‘What do you mean by “someone like me”?’ Tess asked. ‘Because you are beautiful, Josie. He would be lucky to marry you.’

‘A plumpy partridge?’ Josie said, and there was a hint of shame in her voice.

‘Papa meant it as an endearment, not as a description,’ Tess said, cursing her father silently, then instantly following the impulse with a silent prayer for forgiveness.

‘Did you hear His Grace mention that he would ask Lady Clarice to be our chaperone?’ Imogen said, abruptly changing the subject back to her favourite topic of conversation. ‘Lady Clarice is Draven’s mother. His mother! We are bound to see him often. And if she likes me …’

‘The fact Maitland’s mother exists does not alter the fact that his fiancée exists as well,’ Josie noted.

‘I can tell that Draven’s heart is not engaged in the match,’ Imogen said with an edge to her voice. ‘Just consider, he’s been betrothed for over two years without progressing to the altar.’

‘I hate to be dour,’ Annabel said, ‘but there’s likely a great deal of money involved in a breach-of-promise suit. Maitland has never been one to consider money as other than fodder for his stables. Do you really think he would choose you over his stables?’

Imogen opened her mouth, and then lapsed into silence.

‘Enough,’ Tess said, sitting up and pushing back the counterpane. ‘We must dress for supper.’

‘I’m merely going to the drawing room briefly to meet our chaperone,’ Josie said. ‘Then Mrs Beeswick is going to serve me a comfortable meal in the schoolroom. I’ve been there while you were sleeping, and it’s all books. Lovely books!’

Tess gave her a hug. ‘That’s splendid, darling. And the duke told me that he’d find you a governess directly, so perhaps you could even start lessons in the near future. It would be nice if one of us were learned. Imogen, you mustn’t let Lady Clarice have even a hint of your tendresse for her son.’

‘I’m not stupid!’ Imogen clambered off the bed. She’d left her hair down, and it swept behind her in a great swirling gleam of black silk. ‘Just don’t ask me to marry anyone except for Draven. Not the duke nor the earl. I’m quite certain that — ‘

‘Oh, no,’ Josie moaned. ‘Can’t you just accept the fact that Maitland is unavailable, Imogen?’

‘I don’t agree,’ Imogen said stubbornly. ‘Don’t you remember the time that I managed to fall out of the apple tree at Draven’s feet, and he picked me up?’ She shivered. ‘It was lovely. He’s so strong.’

‘Yes, but — ‘ Josie said, but Imogen overran her.

‘I thought I might not see Draven until we travelled to London, but here he is living down the road, and his mother is to be our chaperone.’ Imogen’s eyes were glowing with fervour. ‘Obviously, it’s fate! We belong together.’

‘I think we’ve neglected the possibility that she injured her head in that fall,’ Josie said to Annabel and Tess.

Tess sighed. It was obvious to everyone that Draven Maitland didn’t really give a pin for Imogen, and it was equally obvious that Imogen wouldn’t countenance marrying anyone other than Maitland. Either she or Annabel would have to give Imogen a home until their little sister finally gave up her fruitless adoration.

‘Our marriage was fated in the stars!’ Imogen announced, looking as dramatic as any heroine in a melodrama.

Annabel was standing before the glass, pulling her honey hair in a great mass over her shoulder. ‘Darling,’ she said, giving Imogen an amused glance, ‘you keep your idea of how marriages are made, and I shall keep mine. From everything I’ve seen, the best marriages are those between practical persons, entered into for practical reasons, and with a reasonable degree of confidence in compatibility.’

‘You sound like a solicitor,’ Imogen said.

‘An accountant,’ Annabel responded. ‘Papa made me into an accountant, which means that I can’t help looking at life as a series of negotiations, of which marriage is the most important.’

She smiled at herself in the glass and twisted her hair into a great shining pile on her head. ‘Do I not look like a duchess?’ She struck a pose. ‘Make way for Her Grace!’

‘Make way for a goose!’ Josie said, and then shrieked and ran for the door as Annabel made a swipe at her bottom with the brush.

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