The Primrose Path (22 page)

“Very well, I’ll pay you twenty pounds to share your man, if you swear to take him with you when you go. But I’ll double that if you can find me a physician.”

“What? The bruise doesn’t look that bad, Knolly. Or did you mean for the dog? You really have been rusticating too long, my dear fellow, if this pathetic lump of fur is of such importance to you.”

“Leave the dog out of this. I want a doctor for the village, a permanent surgeon who’s not too high in the instep to treat the blacksmith’s boils and the cottagers’ colicky infants. No drunks, no quacks, and no basket scramblers who are on the lookout for a wealthy patron.”

“I’m not in the employment agency business, you know, but I’ll see what I can do. Between you, Lady Hathaway, and a bit of investigation Lord Wyte is thinking of having me do, this could turn out to be a profitable sojourn in the country. My thanks, cuz.”

“Fine, but remember what I said about Miss Armstead or you’ll be on the first coach back to London.”

“My, my, we are sensitive, aren’t we?”

Corin didn’t know what he was anymore. He knew only that he didn’t want his foppish, fashionable cousin anywhere near his dog, or his Angel.

Chapter Twenty-four

Angelina wished the woman who came that afternoon were her sister. Charlotte Franklin was lively and levelheaded, with a large family of sun-browned children. She was blond and as pretty as Angelina thought Philomena would have turned out to be, except for the thickened waistline and double chin. The children were wonderful with the dogs, gentle with Robinet, and courteous to Lady Hathaway and Angelina. Charlotte’s husband, Preston, was a soft-spoken man with twinkling eyes who won Angelina’s admiration by not instantly fawning over Mercedes Lavalier.

She would have a whole family, Angelina thought, a big, noisy, happy family, if Charlotte were her sister. Charlotte wished it were so even more, she admitted, for Preston had just been discharged from the army, where he had served with distinction until contracting an ague and a weakness in the lungs. The army had sent them all home from the Peninsula, with a recommendation and one month’s pay.

“And how they think we are to survive, I want to know, for my Preston’s not skilled in anything but soldiering,” Charlotte said when her husband went outside with the youngsters. “And not the bully-boy posturing of those pigs who tried to stop us at the gate, either. An insult to the uniform, those jackstraws. My Preston is a good man who would turn his hand to anything to provide for the children, but he hasn’t got his strength back yet. And after all those years following the drum, we have no friends in England to call on, to see if they might know of an open position. We often talked of saving up to buy an inn when he retired from the military, but then there was always another mouth to feed.”

Charlotte smiled fondly at the horde of children romping with the dogs. “Not that I’m regretting a one of the darlings, but the boys should go off to school to learn a trade, and the girls will be needing dowries. How we are to manage is anybody’s guess. That’s why, when I saw your advertisement, I said to Preston, ‘This sounds like our luck has changed.’ “

Unfortunately for everyone’s hopes, Charlotte couldn’t remember their father’s pet name for her, which was Angelina’s key to proving her sister’s identity. Not only could Charlotte not recall a nickname, she could not recall a father. A beautiful, laughing mother dressed in silks and satins and diamonds and pearls, but no father. Charlotte and an older sister had been taken to the workhouse when their mother died during an influenza epidemic. No father had come to claim them there, either. “For two days I had myself convinced my mama was a real lady, a nobleman’s daughter, instead of a whore.”

“What happened to your sister?” Lady Hathaway wanted to know, dabbing at her eyes with a lace-edged cloth.

“And you?” Angelina asked.

“I was adopted by a nice couple, my sister wasn’t. The workhouse burned down a year later. I never found out what happened to her.” Charlotte looked at Angelina with regret. “It would have been a treat, Miss Armstead, if you could have been her.”

While Lady Hathaway and Angelina were both planning on hiring Nigel Truesdale to track down yet another young woman, Mercedes Lavalier predictably inquired how Charlotte had met her
tres charmant
lieutenant.

“Preston moved in next door. He never wanted to be anything but a soldier, and I never wanted to be anything but his wife. Now I suppose I might find a job in service and leave Preston at home to mind the children. He won’t be happy, thinking it’s the man’s job to provide for his family, but what can we do?”

They could manage a soon-to-open shelter for stray dogs, that’s what. If Angelina couldn’t have Charlotte for a sister, she’d have her for a neighbor. As she told Corin when he called to tell her about Sunshine’s progress, Charlotte Franklin was perfect for the job. “She is honest and loving and not given to hysterical agitations, not after raising six children, including one set of twins, at the war’s front.”

“What, six children? How old is she? I thought you said she was of an age with your missing sister?”

Angelina pursed her lips. “Yes, she is, but she and her husband are very much in love. I know that Lady Sophie would not approve of such prolific breeding, either, and Mercedes has agreed to explain to Charlotte how to—” Scarlet-faced, Angelina recalled her company. “Anyway, when the children get a little bigger, they’ll be able to help, and now there is time for Preston to finish recuperating while the rest of the kennels are being built. They can move into the new living quarters at the old Remington place next week. They’ll stay here, meantime, and send for their trunks from the posting inn.”

“You’ve just met them, and yet you are so sure of their characters, Angel? Not only have you hired them, but you’ve invited them into your home? Lud, what if he was a deserter and she a purse snatcher? You can’t know.”

“I trust my instincts—but I asked Lady Hathaway and Mademoiselle Lavalier’s opinions, too.” Those ladies had tactfully if negligently gone to practice in the music room when his lordship arrived.

Angel hadn’t waited to ask his opinion, Corin complained to himself, deciding not to inquire if she thought Sunshine would be happier in his dressing room or in the estate office. His sister had mentioned she’d be happy if he tossed the dog back in the woods, where it belonged. Lord Wyte was resting after the journey, and Miss Melissa was still recovering from her
crise de nerfs,
lying abed with rosewater-soaked cloths on her forehead. He couldn’t help noting that Angel looked fit and fetching in her sprigged muslin, and she’d been the one to suffer through the ordeal.

“Furthermore,” she was saying while his mind wandered over her various charms, “you’ll be happy to know that the Franklins will be taking Buttons with them when they move to the new facility. He has adopted the children as his flock and keeps them from straying out of Charlotte’s sight, especially the twins, who tend to be little imps. She is thrilled and, yes, I did tell her about the lamb. She says she’ll make sure Buttons is the best-fed dog in Britain, if he keeps the infantry in line.”

“I wish someone could do the same for my niece and nephew. The brats tore up one of my favorite atlases, looking for pictures to paste onto the nursery walls, which were too plain, according to my sister.”

“Perhaps my next sister will be a competent nursemaid, Corin. You can always hope.”

He’d hoped Lord Wyte would take dinner upstairs on a tray in his room, or with his ailing daughter. But Papa Wyte was not one to let his quarry escape so easily.

Corin was dressed to his own exacting standards, if not to Nigel’s valet’s taste, after much
tsking
and tongue clicking by the fussy little man over the viscount’s severe style. Lord Knowle had tied his own cravat, preferring to ruin three neck cloths than to look like a Christmas-wrapped mummy.

More of the house party guests had arrived, so Corin was relieved that the dinner was excellent: turbot in oyster sauce, vol-au-vents of veal, and plain English beef, in case the India nabob missed traditional British cooking. Henri was back in prime twig, now that his dog, Molly, was back in the kitchen, and to hell with Florrie’s brats. Let her keep those limbs of Satan in the nursery, where they belonged, Lord Knowle had decided after listening to his chef’s request that the two hellions be kept out of his domain. Those weren’t precisely Henri’s words, which were more to the effect that he would boil the bastards in oil if they switched the sugar for salt one more time or put another toad in his stock pot.

After the meal the Duke of Fellstone excused himself. Most of the other guests speculated correctly from Florrie’s thin-lipped smile that he was off to visit Mercedes Lavalier, which was no one else’s business except his and the government’s. Talbot, Nigel, and a few others were getting up a game of cards, and the ladies,
sans
Miss Wyte, were in the parlor with their needlework and nimble tongues.

Corin was cornered. Now he knew how the grilled salmon felt.

“My precious wasn’t happy.”

“No, and I hope you have conveyed my deepest apologies for the sorry welcome she received at Knowle Castle. My sister did say that Miss Wyte was recovering enough to join the company tomorrow.”

Lord Wyte nodded, almost scraping his chin on the boulder-size diamond in his cravat. “Aye, she’s not one of those sickly females who’re always dosing themselves for some megrim or other. My gel’s got bottom. She can’t stand to see an animal suffer, is all.”

Neither could Angel, but she didn’t faint; she did something about the suffering. Still, Miss Wyte had been reared in cotton wool. Then again, there were all those stuffed creatures in Wyte’s library. “I thought you said Miss Wyte had accompanied you on some of your hunts.”

“Oh, she comes along, but she don’t watch the kill. I thought a Corinthian like your lordship would appreciate a woman who’s a bruising enough rider to keep up.”

Miss Wyte would have to be an excellent horsewoman, if that mettlesome mare was any indication of her ability and not just her father’s wealth.

Wyte was going on: “Aye, she’s a real picture on a horse, my Missy. And she’s right fond of her cats. Won’t travel without a pair of the little rascals.”

“Won’t travel ... ?
Do you mean she has cats upstairs?” No wonder Florrie was looking so feverish. Corin had thought she was still agitated over his leaving her to deal with the debacle in the carriage drive.

“Aye, two long-haired beauties. We had to chase one down the hall before dinner. Want to go exploring, don’t you know.”

Corin knew that the dog he had in his dressing room wasn’t half dead anymore, and the footman assigned to watch wasn’t the brightest. Oh, lud.

The bloody cat wasn’t his biggest problem, just as seeing the bloody dog hadn’t been Melissa’s, which her papa finally got around to pointing out. “Missy couldn’t help but notice the female with you.”

She would have had to be blind to miss the grimy, gun-bearing woman tumbling out of the woods at his side. She’d had no hat, no chaperon, and no qualms about going beyond the pale. Corin didn’t like Lord Wyte referring to Angel as a female, though. ‘That was Miss Armstead, who resides in Primrose Cottage at the edge of my property.”

Lord Wyte nodded. He knew all about Miss Armstead, thanks to Nigel Truesdale. What he didn’t know was what Miss Armstead was to the viscount. He waited expectantly.

“She was my aunt’s companion, who has now become a woman of modest but independent means.”

“Aye, but is she the kind of female you’d want at your dinner table?”

What he meant was, was Angel good enough to invite to meet Corin’s sister and future bride, or was she a convenient to be visited at her own place? Corin resented the implication. “Miss Armstead is dining with us tomorrow, I believe. Or perhaps it is the next day. She is a lady, my lord. Her mother was daughter to the Duke of Kirkbridge.”

“A duke, eh? What about the father?”

“Gentry.”

“But the chit’s been employed.”

“Genteelly.”

“Knows how to behave like a lady?”

Corin remembered the kiss. “Generally. Miss Arm-stead has a mind of her own and a generous nature that sometimes leads her toward rash behavior, but only in defense of her pets.” And any other cause she happens to espouse, like finding a lost sister. Corin didn’t mention that, though. “She would grace the finest drawing room in the land, my lord, if she chose to.”

While the nabob seemed to weigh Corin’s words, the viscount was hoping he hadn’t been too vocal in his defense. Deuce take it, was he to be accused of dalliance with every female he spoke to? Or rescued dogs with? “We were in a great hurry, my lord. It was an emergency.”

“Aye, I could see that. Still, don’t look right, young female with no dragon in sight.”

“I assure you, Miss Armstead has a resident
duenna
and any number of other friends and neighbors looking out for her welfare and her reputation. You’ll meet many of them at the dinner also.”

“Yes, well, I only want what’s best for my girl, you know.”

“Of course, what father would wish otherwise?”

“And I’d hate to discover after the fact that I gave my little minx to someone not worthy.”

Corin nodded. He would hate to discover after the fact that his ideal bride wasn’t so perfect a match for him, bruising rider or not. But, he pondered, what if a man married a Diamond of the First Water, a belle, a Toast, then lost all his money? Could Miss Wyte kill a chicken? Could she cook it and serve it and clean his house? His own sister Florrie couldn’t even take care of her children without an army of inept nursemaids. Charlotte Franklin could manage, he knew. Angelina Armstead would learn, he thought. Melissa Wyte would faint, he feared, or sulk in her bedroom. He wasn’t apt to find himself needing a helpmate, an unpaid housekeeper, a drudge. But did he need a rich man’s pampered pearl-beyond-price?

And cats?

Mostly he was hating the discovery that his dog had fleas.