An Unmarried Lady Read online

  AN UNMARRIED LADY

  By Anna Willman

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE: In which Miss Howard receives an Unexpected Legacy.

  CHAPTER TWO: In which Mr. Lambert Howard Takes Matters into his Own Hands.

  CHAPTER THREE: In which Miss Howard receives a Surfeit of Suitors.

  CHAPTER FOUR: In which Lady Benton comes to Call.

  CHAPTER FIVE: In which Mr. Howard reveals his Splendid Scheme.

  CHAPTER SIX: In which the Misses Howard Go to London.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: In which they meet Friends, New and Old.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: In which Captain James Howard gives in to Persuasion.

  CHAPTER NINE: In which the Presumptive Heir arrives at Lynnfield.

  CHAPTER TEN: In which a Treasure Hunt is Proposed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: In which Love arrives and all Comfort flies.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: In which the Masquerade is Exposed.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: In which the Puzzle is Solved.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: In which in a Black Fog Descends Upon Them.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: In which Remorse does not necessarily bring Redemption.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: In which Love remains Obscured in the Fog.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: In which Miss Anne begins her Season

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: In which Great Aunt Agatha has the Final Word.

  Chapter One: In which Miss Howard receives an Unexpected Legacy

  A lifetime dedicated to dissolution, self indulgence, and extravagance had left Mr. Lambert Howard’s estates sadly depleted and his liver ravaged. Yet neither this nor the death just nine months prior of his only son and heir, as the result of a wound received on a dusty battlefield in Spain, had touched his handsome countenance, his sweet disposition, and his inclination to indulge in optimism. Not even Miss Elaine Howard, who had every reason to deplore her father’s past profligacy, was immune to his famous charm. The elder of his two surviving daughters, relying only on common sense and careful management, she had these past four years brought the Howard family back from the brink of ruin. Mr. Howard was fully cognizant of her singular accomplishment and suitably grateful, though he could not help but occasionally wonder how it came about that he had sired such an unnatural child.

  In addition to Mr. Howard’s other winning attributes, he had developed in recent years, under the orders of his physician and the determined ministrations of his daughters and his elderly valet, a habit of sobriety that made possible a certain level of self reflection which might have cast him into the deepest gloom, had he not also possessed an irrepressible sense of the ridiculous.

  Mr. Howard was ensconced, as usual, in the wing chair in the Green Parlor, which though not as grand as a number of the other drawing rooms at Lynnfield Manor, was by far the coziest, for the fireplace did not smoke and, when desired, the draft could be almost entirely blocked by the heavy draperies of a faded green brocade for which the room had been named. The weather was warm this early October morning, however, so the fire was banked low and the drapes were only pulled close enough to cut the glare of the morning sun and dim the room so that the general shabbiness of the furnishings was not glaringly apparent. There was enough light, therefore, for him to read through the documents his daughter had brought him earlier without calling for a servant to come and light a candle. He finished reading and gazed towards the fire, a slight furrow briefly deepening the lines of his brow.

  Elaine came briskly into the parlor, breaking into his reverie and carrying the second best silver tea tray laden high with his favorites – scones with orange marmalade, cucumber sandwiches, small wedges of cheese and sliced apples from their small orchard. Before pouring out the tea, she handed him a neatly trimmed pen.

  Casting a doleful eye on the faded and patched gown she wore with an elegant grace, he remonstrated. “Now, Laney, you know the matter cannot be so urgent as to require an answer from me this very instant. Surely we can enjoy this excellent nuncheon you have brought me and enjoy a nice coze before attending to business. For I can see from your dress that just as soon as I give you my signature, you will be off with Chudleigh, discussing ditches and drainage and any manner of improvements, all of them most unnecessary, I am certain, for we did very well without them all my life. And I do think it is hard of you to expect me to attend to such details in my dotage when you know very well that I scarcely cared to attend to them when I was younger and in good health.”

  Noting the spark of humor in her father’s eye, Miss Howard quite rightly ignored this last complaint. Nonetheless she felt a twinge, for indeed she was anxious to get back to Chudleigh, the bailiff having informed her that he wanted her to take a look at the latest of a long line of leaks inundating the stables, this particular one resulting in a moldering stack of hay that must be replaced soon if the few remaining horses on the estate were to be properly fed when the winter cold set in.

  Her father’s twinkle broadened into a self-deprecating smile. “Just so, my dear. Won’t you give me the pleasure of your company for just a little while? The stable roof will wait, as will the hay and the lease on the West pasture. You see, I was listening attentively when you told me your plans for the afternoon, for all that I sit here in my warm little nest like an unhatched egg.”

  Miss Howard capitulated with an unladylike grin and sat down to pour out the tea. “Yes, Papa, I shall stay and take some tea with you, if you will excuse my work clothes, but I must have your signature approving the new roof on the West Wing so the order can go out, and I must go with Chudleigh to the stables at least by one o’clock so that I will be able to return to the house in time to change into something presentable before Mr. Norton’s arrival.”

  “By all means, go with Chudleigh after we have had our tea, but the signature will have to wait, for I’ve no intention of committing to such an expenditure until I have learned what news that sharpster lawyer is coming to impart to us. Ah, thank you my dear. No one but you gets my tea so exactly right. And another cucumber sandwich. Bless you.” He beamed at his daughter.

  “What Mr. Norton’s visit could have to do with the West Wing, I can’t imagine,” responded his dutiful daughter. “And now it looks as if we will have to replace the stable roof as well, for every time we patch it, it springs another leak. Now, Papa, don’t you suppose that Mr. Norton will just have some small trinket that Great Aunt Agatha has bequeathed me? For he was her man of business and his letter was addressed particularly to me.” She sipped her tea in silence for a minute and then said, more hopefully, “Perhaps she has left me some of her books. Her library was most impressive, I recall, from the one time that I visited her.”

  “Trinkets! Books! Pah!” exclaimed Mr. Howard. “That woman died possessed of a vast fortune, her penny pinching brother having left it all to her scarcely a year before she herself succumbed to the influenza. My Uncle Foster Howard was a self- absorbed bachelor all his life and never spent a groat on anyone or anything without a great deal of fuss and botheration, so there must have been a considerable fortune come to her. I’m sure that she can never have had the time to spend a fraction of it. So the chances are she’s left you a few hundred at least, for I know well she took a fancy to you that time you visited her in Bath, you being almost as much of a bluestocking as she was, and corresponding so dutifully each week ever since like you’ve done. Well, it’s the least she could do, and if she has left you some of the ready, well, we may want to rethink how we’re going to spend the blunt around here.”

  “Well, you’re quite wrong there, Papa,” Elaine replied. “It was not duty but a pleasure to correspond with such an energetic spirit as she was. Whatever she has left me, and I cannot suppose she would leave me more than perhaps a few books – perhaps som
ething on geography or travel and maybe also some of the philosophy and political economy, Mills, Hume and perhaps Smith, or some of her good friend Mary Wollstonecraft’s works – well there’s no point speculating when we will learn the sum of it soon enough from Mr. Norton. But whatever it is, we still will need a new roof on the West Wing and probably on the stables as well. There can be no question of putting it off, with winter so close.”

  “I can’t see much reason in wasting our few remaining funds on roofs and such, anymore,” the invalid responded pettishly. “Not since the Battle of Salamanca put a period to the succession.”

  “Oh Papa! Oh I know how hard it is.” Elaine put down her tea cup and reached out to pat her father’s hand. “Of course we all grieve for dear Giles, such a brave and gallant soldier as he was and a kind, kind brother, though shockingly extravagant. But indeed, you could not bear to see dear Lynnfield go to rack and ruin! Just think how shameful it would be to hand it on to our cousin in a ruinous condition!”

  “What do I care about some cousin we have never even met?” her father’s voice came out with a slight quaver. “What can he feel for Lynnfield after all, when he has never been here, nor his father, nor grandfather before him? I’ve watched my only son wither away and die. There’s nothing I can do to alter that. Now I have to think about my daughters.”

  Since he had scarcely ever in his sixty-three years of life bestirred himself to provide anything more than promises to his daughters, Elaine remained silent.

  Her father grimaced. “Oh, I know what you are thinking, my dear, and you are quite right. I’ve been selfish and neglectful, but indeed I never meant for you and Anne to be left behindhand. It is the gambler’s curse to always believe he will come about. Many times I had schemes that I was sure would fatten your meager portions, and refurbish Lynnfield back to what it once was as well, but it seems the horse would always stumble or the cards go the wrong way.” He shook his head. “Perhaps it is too much to expect you to understand.”

  “No indeed,” Elaine replied as she poured her father a second cup of tea and added one carefully measured teaspoon of sugar and a dollop of cream. “Fortunately I been spared the lure of the game, although I think I do share your natural optimism of the mind. However, I know well, for so Mama told me often enough, that you are not to be blamed for being a gamester, it being fatally bred in the Howard blood. No, Papa, do not apologize, for you are who you are, and I for one have never wished you otherwise.”

  He took the tea cup from her, sipped it gingerly before setting it down and sighed. “You are a dear girl, but the truth is that I have made rather a mess of my life, haven’t I?”

  “Oh, but such a beautiful mess, Papa. For everyone who knows you loves you and no one could ask for more than that.”

  “Loved? More likely despised. Oh I could and do very well ask more of myself. But I’m not done yet, Laney. I’ve been doing some thinking, and to put it plainly, I know as well as you do that I am running out of time, but I’m not calling it quits yet. I mean to provide for both of my girls before I am done.”

  “Well, you needn’t worry about providing for me.” Elaine got up and walked to the window, where she could look across the long park towards the small stand of fiery red maple trees that bordered the garden of the Dower House beyond. The park itself presented as a ragged unscythed lawn bordered by poorly weeded flower beds, the sad consequence of household economies that had reduced the gardening staff to one ancient family retainer and an occasional boy hired by the day from the nearby village of Dunnswood whenever there arose a task requiring physical strength. She spoke from the window. “You know the competency my dear Godmama left me is quite sufficient to meet my needs. It is Anne that I worry about, for how we are to contrive to give her a proper send out is beyond my comprehension.”

  “You take my point exactly. I’d far rather spend the blunt on getting Anne rigged up to go into Society than on a grand new roof for the whole West Wing. And I’d be pleased to sport you to a second Season as well, for that competency as you call it might have done well enough while Giles was alive and you and Miss Miles could have settled in nicely at the Dower House (not that I ever cared much for that scheme to be sure), but you’ll hardly want to do that now, with a stranger in place here at Lynnfield, and I doubt your fortune will extend to the cost of even a small townhouse in London.”

  “Oh no. I’ve been talking it over with dear Libby, though, and we consider that we might instead locate a small house somewhere in the vicinity of Bath. If we put our funds together, we will have a tidy sum, you know, for she has saved her salary very carefully for all of the years she has been here as governess, and we shall be quite cozy and enjoy the concerts and the libraries and be very gay, I assure you. Only, I’m very much afraid that the expense of purchasing a house will make it impossible for me to dip into my own limited income in order to provide for Anne’s Season.”

  Mr. Howard shook his head at that, but forbore to comment. He felt sure he detected a slight melancholy cast to his elder daughter’s shoulders as she gazed off towards the Dower House. She was in truth of a scholarly bent, as he had himself been in his youth before he had discovered the excitement of the gaming table, but it was a pity she hadn’t made a match when her doting Godmama had sponsored her in her first and only London Season some four years ago.

  A stunning beauty with her chestnut curls and dark eyes, tall and slender with a swan’s neck, Elaine had been widely proclaimed a “diamond of the first water” and received several unexceptionable offers, one of them from an Earl, and this despite the absence of a substantial dowry. However, none of her suitors had prevailed, for Elaine was an independent young woman and a bluestocking to boot, and not at all in a hurry to become ‘leg-shackled’. Short of being swept off her feet by a passionate attachment, she declared that she would prefer to live quietly amidst her books with her beloved governess Libby for a chaperone and her own dear abigail Mary Hastings to look after them.

  At the time he had been relieved, for it was just then, as her first Season ended, that his health had taken a sharp turn for the worse. With Giles away at the front, and the family’s finances crumbling around them (due in large part to a risky investment he had made on the Exchange), and himself in no condition to bring them about again, there was nothing for it but for Elaine to come home to Lynnfield to take care of her ailing father, keep a watchful eye on her precocious fourteen-year-old sister, and do what she could to keep the estate, mortgaged as it was, intact. Then last year – no it was more than a year ago now – Giles had been wounded so badly at Salamanca and come home, miraculously surviving the rough transport back to England only to die some seven months later of festering complications despite the most assiduous nursing tendered to him by his two sisters.

  Now, after four years of watching Elaine patiently take on one responsibility after another (responsibilities he had shirked all his life) and with the weight of his own mortality lying heavy about his shoulders, he saw her with different, newly sober eyes and regretted her lost opportunities almost as much as he mourned the loss of his beloved son. For at twenty-four, Elaine Howard was widely regarded as a confirmed spinster, considerably past the age of matrimony. And this opinion held despite the undeniable fact of her beauty, which to her father’s mind had only grown greater with the passing years. The sparkling diamond had become a glowing pearl, and with every fiber of his increasingly tenuous hold on life, he longed to see her happily established with a family of her own.

  He had meant it when he said he would sacrifice the house for the sake of his daughters’ future. Oh, he loved Lynnfield, would love Lynnfield with his dying breath – it had been handed down from father to son for centuries and was so much more than just the fourteenth-century manor house of warm yellow stone, with all its rambling additions, or the vast acreage surrounding it. Lynnfield was indeed as central to his existence as the simple act of breathing. He, like his father and great-grandfathers before him, had been b
orn here and would die here. But Giles was gone, and now a stranger was to come and take it over.

  True, he had for many years taken Lynnfield for granted and neglected it recklessly, yet the place remained integral to his very sense of who he was. He could scarce bear to think that this very house where he sat so helplessly waiting for his death would go, not to his Own, but to this upstart cousin about whom they knew almost nothing, no more than a few words scrawled in a letter from the front. “A true Howard,” was all Giles had written after a brief encounter with Captain James Howard on the Spanish front. Well that was hardly a commendation. Look what a mess the Howards had made of Lynnfield, his grandfather, his father, himself, and poor Giles fast on the same road before the war came along and he bought his pair of colors. Elaine, now, was made of sterner stuff, and what reward could she hope to get for all her efforts from a “true” Howard?

  He shifted slightly in the chair, characteristically turning his mind away from the melancholy trend of his thoughts. Despair was not to his taste. His thoughts turned instead to a topic where there was room for optimism. He had very little time left, and it would take all his strength, but he was resolved not to shirk his responsibility to his girls. This one thing he was determined to do right. They each had a small portion from their mother, preserved from his extravagance by an ironclad marriage settlement, so they would not go into matrimony quite as paupers, but the cost entailed in launching a young lady into Society was another matter. One he still had a notion or two on how to resolve.

  Elaine might believe she would be satisfied with the life of a single woman living on a small competence, but Anne was a young woman of quite a different sort, not at all bookish and ready for fun wherever she might find it. Anne was made for matrimony. Not quite so beautiful or so tall as Elaine, she was still a very taking little thing, with a titian sheen to her bouncing curls where Elaine’s took on a golden tint, and a vivacity of manner that was sure to please some gentleman of fortune if she could just be introduced into Society. Unfortunately, her Godparents had had the poor judgment to go to Jamaica and had perished there from some foreign ailment during her childhood, and the girls’ only aunt left alive, Mr. Howard’s deceased wife’s only sister, Katherine, had girls of her own, the eldest of which was fast approaching the age to be contemplating her own first Season. Besides, the charming Lady Benton was just as selfish and feckless as Mr. Howard himself had always been, and while he had every hope that she might be persuaded to act as sponsor for her niece, she could in no way be counted on to assume the cost of the extensive wardrobe required by a young lady going into her First Season.