Althea (33 page)

“Poor honey, have they been very hard on you these last
days?”

“If we really are to be married, Tracy, and I suppose we
are, now you have compromised me so dreadfully and in my own garden, too! have
you no shame? — I must and shall cure you of this habit you are developing of
treating me as the veriest child. Not that I dislike the sentiment, but I am
three and twenty and certainly no small, weak little thing, and even you have
been so kind as to say I was not entirely loathsome in appearance. . . .”

“Did I say that? I lied,” Tracy interjected nonchalantly.

“Abominable man,” Althea scolded.

“And I will have to cure you of parrying my questions,
sweetheart. You are as brave as a lion, but you are also a little wan, and I
imagine that you have had quite a time of your return here, if you have truly
been extricating your father from his housekeeping tangles. Either he throws
you out this minute and I carry you back to London and away from his worrying,
or we are wed within the week by a Special License. I suppose there is no
excuse for such havey-cavey behavior except my own impatience.”

“In point of fact, Tracy, it has not been so bad here as I
expected. The bills were in a shocking way, and the household not much better,
but it was all as I had expected. I shall have to find Papa a good housekeeper
and an agent. You are marrying an organizer, Tracy, and I am afraid you shall
have to adjust to that fact.”

“I know well enough. I shall endeavor to suffer as a
Christian should,” he said meekly.

“O noble man!” Althea laughed. “But if I look a little
fagged, I suppose it was the journey, and sitting up that dreadful night
wondering what I had done, and thinking about — about all the things that had
happened during my stay. About you, I suppose, most of all. I have been so
stupid in my management there it is a wonder you still speak to me.” Althea’s
voice lowered and there was a more sober cast to her eye. She continued more
brightly, “And there was Papa — although he was on his best behavior until this
afternoon, and I suppose I must count that lapse somewhat to my own account. I
have been positively
bustling
trying not to think of you,” she finished
shyly.

“Fool.” He kissed her ear briefly. “Why were you so stubborn
in refusing to believe me when I said that I loved you?”

“It seemed so very unlikely!” Althea cried. “And there was
the whole business of the wretched money, and Lady Boskingram implied that
settling down was your duty. She said your cousin had been trying to settle you
suitably any time these last five years. And she said she was glad that you were
showing some sense in that line.”

“I owe Aunt Peg a little something for that bit of
mischief.” Tracy spied a marble bench cunningly hidden under a cluster of
sickly rhododendron, and guided his lady there.

“She didn’t mean to cause any trouble, Tracy — I do like her
so much! But it seemed so — so illogical that you should care for me,
especially after I had made such a fool of myself over Pendarly — and I didn’t
care tuppence for him after all, so never mention his name to me! I have
conceded as much as I am about to on that score. Even when I knew I — liked
you, I could not see why you should care for me except in an ordinary friendly
sort of way. Then there was all that business with the money, and Francis and
Maria, and Georgiana and Pendarly. It all sounds so stupid now, but at the time
it seemed so awfully reasonable.”

“What is this money you mention? I cannot for my life recall
any monetary exchange in this tangle.” They were seated upon the bench now,
with Althea’s head comfortably established against Tracy’s shoulder, and the
ribbon in her hair was tickling his chin most unmercifully.

“Why, that dreadful sum that Francis lost to you the night
of the Ffordyings’ ball!” Althea said in some surprise. “It caused Francis to
quarrel with Mary, and then to go away, and heaven only knows what economies
they shall have to study to meet it. Of course, Mary does tend to exaggerate,
but it must have been a prodigious sum of money.”

“It was,” Tracy assured her. “But I absolved Bevan of that
debt quite early on in the intrigue. Had no one thought to inform you, sweet
manager? And I had no idea it had caused such a furor. I only played with him
that night because he was foxed” — Althea gave an indignant squirm, but was
kept in her place by a ruthlessly strong arm about her waist — “I saw that he
was foxed, and I didn’t want him falling into the toils of someone less
charitable than I. You see, Ally,” he said ruefully, “even then
I
didn’t
want you troubled — least of all by Bevan’s ruin. And if I ever saw a man
hell-bent for ruin, it was Bevan that night.”

“He and Mary quarreled,” Althea said.

“I know. But do you believe in the purity of my motives now,
O cynic?”

“I believe. Tracy? I do love you.” If she had mentioned this
vital fact before, Calendar did not seem visibly perturbed by its repetition.
He addressed himself instead to replying to the statement as sensibly as be
could.

“And believe,” be murmured in her ear, “that I loved you
when I first offered for you. See what an unscrupulous brute I am, love? I
would have married you first and then allowed you to have come to the
realization that you loved me.”

“I am shocked,” Althea reproved. To remove any impression of
callousness on his part that she might have formed, Tracy was again forced to
persuade her of the sincerity of his intentions.

“You see how everything is worked out, Tracy.” She laughed
after a few minutes. “It quite undoes me to consider it. Mary and Francis happy
again, Georgiana has her Pendarly (and I’m sure I wish her joy of him!), Sophia
and Mr. Tidd seem to be well on the way to marrying and producing a gaggle of
blushing offspring. And then there is us….it is all wonderful.”

“Do I understand that you feel this is all to your credit?
Which recalls it to me: I was charged to give this to you right away.”

“You are a trifle tardy, but I will not give you away. What
is it?”

Tracy produced Maria’s note. Althea received the letter,
written on heavy notepaper in her sister’s large, looping, imprecise hand, and
scanned it three times. Then she read it aloud, spelling for Tracy’s
delectation the more delicious of Maria’s spelling mistakes. Georgiana and
Edward were happy again, and Mrs. Laverham was assuming an air of triumph at
having assured her daughter’s happiness, as she thought, by her own hand. And
as for Maria and Francis, they were happier than anything, as if Althea
couldn’t guess! For her sister had had no time to confide it, but they were
setting up a nursery. Everything was altogether delightful, and the Prince was
having an enormous dinner to celebrate his Regency at last, so Althea must
certainly head back to London at once to plan her toilette! In a postscript
Maria added that if she had ever said a word against Sir Tracy, she wished her
tongue had been cut out, for he was perfectly amiable, and she was sure Althea
would be marvelously settled in no time.

Tracy expressed no surprise at any of the news, including
Maria’s condition. “There is a look that women acquire when they are breeding —
I know it well, since Amalia has been increasing continually since she wed
Boskingram. Very glad to be approved of, at last. I cannot imagine why Lady
Bevan has suddenly developed the opinion that I will not beat you — which I am
not sure is so true! You led us a damnable chase, Ally.” A rough note crept
into his voice. “I shall have to keep a close watch on you, and keep you by
me.”

“As if I needed watching all the time!” Althea bridled
indignantly. Where this altercation might have taken them they did not
discover, for out of the bushes came a thin hallooing: Merrit’s voice.

“Ally, are you about here? Ally?” He broke through the
bushes and landed, unkempt and grubby, in the clearing before them.

“Merrit, must you insist upon ruining all of the gardener’s
work by crawling through it as if you were a fox?” Althea sighed.

“Careful, Sister — that’s what got you exiled last time,”
Merrit said carefully, with a speculative eye on Sir Tracy, who still had his
arm about Althea’s waist.

“I was never sent away: I escaped. But what is all this
yelling and fussing and
invasion of my privacy
? Sometimes I swear you
think you are still playing games back at Eton.”

“I came out to find if Calendar had gone yet, or if you’d
decided to take him, after all. He’s a bruising rider, Ally,” Merrit
recommended. “Hope you take him.”

“She will,” Tracy said briskly, none too pleased with the
interruption.

“There’s good work, Sis. But what I came to tell you is that
I’ve finally learned why Papa would not countenance my going down to Lancaster.
It’s the shabbiest thing I ever heard of. He’s a convenient down there and he
don’t want me to meet her, though there’s little likelihood of that. Don’t
think the old man cares to have her know he’s a son my age. Don’t suppose that
you’d have a little blunt you could lend me until next quarter, Ally?” He had
managed to ingratiate himself by squatting down, at no little risk to his
already begrimed pantaloons, and brushing the dirt from her sandals.

“Merrit, I hope to have you for a brother soon, and I hope
that I shall never presume to manage my wife’s affairs — when she is my wife,
and stop kicking at me, you shrew! — but I think that I speak for her when I
say that she will be in no position to lend you any money. She has her bride
clothes to consider, and after that, I expect her to support me in a suitable
fashion — I am afraid all
my
funds will be tied up for my heir, you
see.” Tracy allowed his voice to trail off insinuatingly.

Merrit, to Althea’s surprise, did not sulk or go into a
tantrum, but directed a rare, cheeky grin at Tracy. “I see. Well, Ally, I think
that you two will suit down to the ground, and I shall contrive to get to
Lancaster somehow. Hey, if you write a book, don’t use
our
name for it,
please. I couldn’t stomach owning a sister who was bookish in public.” With
this exhortation, the heir to Hook Well dove back into the bushes, leaving his
sister and future brother-in-law to stare after him in amusement.

“Tracy,” Althea said thoughtfully, sometime later, “was it
really your phaeton that ditched my chaise that morning?”

“It pains me to admit it, my dear, but I’m afraid that it
was. What machinations are you concocting to revenge yourself upon me?”

Althea eyed her love reproachfully. “Revenge? Do you really
think me such a mean creature as that?”

“Well, after seeing Pendarly in your toils, I have some
notion of what a woman scorned may do,” he answered philosophically.

“There’s the difference, you see. There I was a woman
scorned. In the other instance, I was merely a woman overturned. Two entirely
disparate things, although I do think you might have had some concern for a
fellow traveler cast pell mell to the winds. Or at least into a ditch. Do you
know it took all morning to have that wretched chaise repaired? It was very bad
of you, Tracy. I hope you made a great deal of money over it.” Althea turned
aggrievedly from Calendar’s shoulder and fixed her gaze somewhere into the
shrubby distance.

“Althea,” Tracy said dangerously. She did not turn.
“Althea.” Her back remained resolutely turned from him.

“I suppose I shall have to wed you by Special License
tomorrow, for if we go on this way, I have no guarantee of even having you to
wife. Althea, turn around,” he commanded in a voice that brooked no denial.
Althea turned slowly to face him, eyes lowered, a muted smile hovering at the
corner of her lips.

“No cure for it,” Calendar said fatalistically. “I had best
wed you immediately, for who knows how much discipline I shall be forced to
administer to you.”

“Yes, please,” Althea said agreeably.

~The End~

Althea

Madeleine Robins

Book View Café

19 April 2011

Copyright © 1977 Madeleine E. Robins

ISBN: 978-161138-050-7

www.bookviewcafe.com

This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical
events, real people,or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names,
characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination,
and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is
entirely coincidental.

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