Miss Mischief - A Regency Romance (2 page)

They had taken their time, wending their way back to Wiltshire. Harry had insisted that they take one of his carriages and, as Marcus had charge of Millie, he had agreed that this was the best arrangement. He did not fancy taking her in the public coach, not so much because she would be subjected to the discomfort of riding with the unwashed masses, but because they would be exposed to her and her particularly brutal style of honesty. His sister’s forthright manner was an acquired taste. Their mother despaired of her youngest child ever blossoming into a young lady but Millie’s siblings were quietly thrilled that their sister refused to be anything but herself.

When they had arrived at Thule Cottage, the last bastion of the once impressive Hathaway estate, it had been two o’clock in the afternoon and he had spent some time after he had climbed down from the coach studying the place. Millie had been unusually silent at his side and, after a time, had slipped her small hand into his.

‘It isn’t very nice after Barnstable,’ she murmured.

Marcus acknowledged this to be true. The little place looked solid enough but it was hardly an extensive Georgian manor built of golden stone. It was, in fact, a white washed two story edifice beneath a sloping thatched roof that hinted of uncomfortable accommodation for somebody who stood well over six feet tall. It must once have belonged to one of his tenants and he wondered how they had come by it. It was a pity Sanderson, his father’s secretary, wasn’t about to ask. Still, the place had a pretty little garden that he had no doubt his mother had tended while she had stayed there, and there was a vegetable garden out back and an acre of land in all. There was a small barn that had seen better days but it would do for the coach and horse for the night. Despite Harry’s assurance that his equipage was at their disposal indefinitely, Marcus had suspected that they would have neither the accommodation nor the means to feed the animals for any length of time and he told the coachman that he should set off for Somerset the next morning.

The house was empty of everybody but Mrs. Turner, who had been their housekeeper at Barnstable. She had come into their employ some thirty years before as a scullery maid and had risen to the exalted position of housekeeper through hard work and excellent household management. It might be expected that she would have stayed on with the new owners – indeed, they had asked her to – but she had refused, preferring instead to stay with the family she had served for so long. More of their people would have stayed too, if they had been able. Audrey had told him that many of the staff had been reluctant to abandon them and that nothing had been able to dislodge Mrs. Turner, who had stoutly claimed that she was too old to find another position. It was quite untrue but they had surrendered gracefully and gratefully, for she was a wonder at keeping any household, be it large or small, running smoothly, even one in such straightened circumstances as their own. They hadn’t enough to employ gardeners but as they possessed only a modest garden now, it hardly mattered. Unsurprisingly, Lady Hathaway’s maid had also remained and together they had muddled along well enough, hoping the situation would be a temporary one. How much they must have been pinning their hopes on Isabella’s all important London Season. Poor girl, she must have felt the weight of her family’s future pressing down on her slender shoulders most cruelly.

Standing outside of what was left of his inheritance, he squeezed his sister’s hand reassuringly.

‘I like it,’ he said quietly. ‘It has a solid air, don’t you think? Do the chimneys smoke?’

This had made Millie grin. ‘They did until Mama had a man come and clean them. The bed chambers are small but the roof slopes. I like that.’

‘You might, but I see any number of bruises and bumps on the top of my head in the immediate future,’ Marcus had observed ruefully. ‘Still, I must concur. Ever since I was a boy I’ve always wanted to sleep under a sloping roof.’

They had gone inside to explore after that. Mrs. Turner had welcomed him with obvious delight, turning away so that he did not see the tears that she hastily blotted with her apron and he had been touched. He’d reached out to squeeze her shoulder.

‘It would take more than France to kill me off, Mrs. Turner. You of all people should have known that.’

She had bit her lip but had gathered herself together, turning deliberately brisk. ‘And so I did. It would take more than France to finish off the boy who used to raid my fruit trees and steal my fresh baked pies off the window sill. Come along then, tell me all about your mother and sisters. Is Miss Isabella happy?’

This had provoked a lively discussion, Millie admitting with cheerful candor that Harry was much better than she expected he would be and hardly minded at all when she had brought home a stray dog that she had seen being tormented in the local village by a group of boys. The dog had been in a sorry state but she had remedied that herself, bathing the creature and anointing its wounds with soothing ointment. Harry Carstairs might have been surprised to see a mangy mutt of no breeding attending the dinner table but he had recovered quickly, just as he had recovered every time Millie had introduced another beast in need into the household.

But then, Marcus had thought with some amusement, Harry Carstairs was extremely enamored with Isabella. He would have probably accepted a veritable zoo of exotic animals if it had made his new family happy.

Having explored his new domain – which took no more than half an hour – he settled in and, over the next few days discovered that there were definitely some benefits to living in a place with smaller apartments than the spacious apartments that had belonged to Barnstable. It was easier to heat the rooms, for instance, a consideration that was very significant as the days were deuced chilly and the nights even more so. Winter had arrived. Several weeks passed and they had few visitors apart from some tradesmen. It was uncertain if the local gentry they had once mingled with knew that Lord Hathaway had returned to the district, but they received no morning calls and paid none. Marcus had no idea what he would have to talk about even if he did see some of his old friends and acquaintances. Millie had been scornful of their continuing absence.

‘It hardly matters,’ she’d said impatiently. ‘And really, it’s just as well for what would we feed them? That’s what Mama used to say. And only think, Marcus. Mrs. Pratchett and Major Forsythe. The Burlingtons and the Cranfords. They are all so stuffy and dull. I am awfully glad they are too proud to pay us a visit.’

‘You would be,’ he’d returned wryly, although privately he had to agree. What the devil was he supposed to talk about with people he had known for the better part of his life? The unfortunate nature of his father’s death and the scandalous events that had led up to it? How Isabella had made such a fortuitous marriage that the family had been largely saved from genteel poverty? How he had found his experiences in France to be the stuff of nightmares? He tried to imagine what he would say but he balked at the very idea of having such a conversation. Such things were too ghastly to contemplate and he knew that Millie was quite correct; they could do without such encounters very well.

Still, it seemed quite strange to be back in his home county, not two miles distant from Barnstable, his home for the greater part of his life. He was still Lord Hathaway, that much had not changed. But all the things that went with it seemed to have, including his place in the world. He didn’t know if he had one any more.

Rather alarmingly, he did not know if he
wanted
one.

It was peaceful in the sitting room. A log shifted in the fireplace, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney. The noise made his sister stir.

‘Can we go fishing tomorrow?’ Millie inquired, voice sleepy.

‘I think we might have to. The pantry could do with some excitement.’

‘Let’s go shooting, then. A few rabbits, a couple of grouse… Mrs. Turner does do the most marvelous grouse.’

‘Dear God, you’re turning us into poachers.’

‘Oh, poo. All the land around here used to belong to us.’

She didn’t understand or, more to the point, she didn’t want to, that all rights they had once had to the land were gone. She was such a stubborn creature.

Of all the family, it had been Millie who had refused to countenance the idea that he might be dead. Isabella had told him that Millie simply refused to allow for the fact that he might not be coming home again. She had borne the loss of their old life with remarkable fortitude. Perhaps it was because she was the youngest and his mother and sisters had tried to spare her as much as possible. But Millicent Hathaway was nothing, if not a realist. She probably understood a great deal better than most of them what had been lost. Understood and accepted it with the innate stoicism that characterized her resilient nature. Just the same, she was more than willing to bend the rules if the opportunity presented itself.

‘What a terror you are,’ he said affectionately, sitting up. ‘Go up to bed before you fall asleep on the couch. I promised Mama that I wouldn’t let you stay up all night.’

‘But I like to stay up all night,’ Millie yawned.

‘Exactly. Bed or there will be no fishing for you tomorrow young lady.’

She grinned at him and rose to her feet. ‘We’ll be all right, Marcus. You know we will. You will find something to occupy you and we will live here and we will be happy.’

Her voice was serious, as was her steady, direct gaze. Rising as well, he enfolded her in a hug. ‘My dearest Millie, we will be perfectly all right. I just have to find something to do with my life. What do you think a peer of vastly reduced circumstances
should
do with his time?’

‘Do you know, I’ve considered the matter and I believe you should become a highwayman,’ she observed. He detected a distinct note of hope in her voice.

‘A chancy career, don’t you think? I’d like as not get shot or be hung.’

‘Not if you did it correctly. I’ve been thinking about it -’

‘No,’ he said, very firmly. It was best to nip his sister’s more fanciful ideas in the bud at inception, lest she become carried away with them and trial the idea herself. ‘I am not temperamentally suited to such a career.’

‘Well what about a thief? We know all the houses around here and it would be quite simple to sneak in and… and remove some things. They would never notice,’ she added encouragingly. ‘They have so many things that a few missing pieces would hardly matter.’

He shook his head. She was incorrigible! ‘And you have no moral objections to stealing from people we once sat down to table with?’

‘The Prachetts? Major Fordyce? No, not really.’

‘Good God, what a dreadful creature you are! But think no more about it, sweetheart. As you said, we’ll be fine. Things are already getting better, are they not? Isabella is wed and happy, we all have a roof on our heads and food on the table. And as time passes life will improve even more, I promise you that.’

‘I suppose that is true. But what about you? You are not unhappy, are you Marcus?’ She was eyeing him with those big hazel eyes of hers, searching his face and it struck him that, having lost one family member in a shockingly precipitous manner, she might be worried that her brother, newly returned and faced with tragedy, might be contemplating taking a similar route.

‘I am not unhappy, Millie. I am disappointed, bewildered and adjusting to my present circumstances,’ he told her gravely, showing her the courtesy of honesty. He could sweep her concerns aside with a well-placed jest, but it would not allay the underlying anxiety she must feel about his future. She needed to know he was not his father and that it would never occur to him that death would be a better choice than life. All other considerations aside, he could never do that to his family. ‘I am experiencing all of the emotions that you and Mama and Audrey and Isabella must have experienced when Papa… did what he did. I am catching up, in fact. But while I will not pretend to you that it has been easy, I am far from downcast. We are Hathaways, are we not? We always come about in the end.’

She seemed to visibly relax and he had not realized, until then, how tense she had been. Perhaps Millie had not realized it either. She nodded, leaned forward to hug him fiercely and bade him an abrupt goodnight. He watched her leave the room, then sank back down onto the sofa and sighed.

‘We Hathaways might always come about but usually we still had something in the bank to come about with,’ he muttered. In truth, he had very little. Was it ironic that he was now dependent on a stipend that had been left to him by an elderly great aunt with whom he had visited as a child and who had taken an inexplicable liking to him? It was hardly a fortune, fifty pounds a year in total, which might be just enough for him, but would probably not stretch to keeping a single horse in his stable and certainly not a carriage. He had lost his valet when he’d gone overseas, which was just as well as it would save him wages he could not afford. At the age of eighteen, when he had inherited Great-Aunt Charlotte’s yearly gift he had thought it an inexplicably sweet gesture while privately thinking that it would have been far better directed towards his sisters, who might have appreciated a little pin money. It was remarkable how ‘pin money’ could suddenly become one’s entire income.