A Woman of True Honor: True Gentlemen Book Eight Read online

  “You would enjoy taking on those conundrums?”

  “I would, yes, but as I said—”

  “Valerian, you would enjoy the work. Somebody has to do it. Your neighbors would benefit greatly if the post were held by a man who likes the job versus somebody who resents it. If the only meaningful remuneration in this life were in the form of coin, no woman would have children, much less raise them to the age of reason, much less keep house for her family.

  “No soldier would take the king’s shilling, for that matter. Is a life worth only the soldier’s meager pay? I would rather see you paid handsomely in both coin and satisfaction, but if survival is not at issue, satisfaction without coin is a better bargain than coin without satisfaction.”

  His gaze had shifted somewhere in the middle of that tirade from the pastoral landscape below to Emily’s face.

  “You’re saying I should take the job?”

  “Yes. You want to, but you’re plaguing yourself with doubts because having what you want seems to be foreign to your nature. Not all of adulthood should be conscientious fulfillment of obligations, you know.” She nudged her horse back down the path, feeling as if she’d said more than she meant to.

  “Emily, a moment, please.” Valerian’s gelding came up on her right.

  She tugged back on the reins. The mare stopped and swung her head to sniff at Emily’s boot.

  “I have offended you,” Valerian said. “That’s the last thing I wanted to do. I did want to discuss the magistrate’s job with you, but I also wanted to show you Abbotsford.”

  “Abbotsford?”

  “The farm at the bottom of the hill.”

  “More of a manor, I’d say. It’s quite pretty.”

  “I’m glad you think so. I was hoping you might be interested in sharing it with me.”

  * * *

  Valerian had put his heart at Emily Pepper’s figurative feet quietly, maybe too quietly.

  “Sharing a farm with you?” she asked.

  “Sharing a property and a life. I own these acres, that house, those outbuildings.” To say that aloud was odd, in a good way. “Have since I was eighteen. My tenant is leaving after harvest, and I’m considering setting up a household here.”

  Emily guided her mare down the track. “Are you proposing marriage to me, Valerian?”

  “I am proposing to ask your father if I might court you. Before that delicate negotiation, I thought to assure myself of your interest. Permission to court is not consent to marry. I know that, but there’s no point in my building that particular castle in Spain if you’re not willing to dwell in it with me.”

  “Papa will be difficult.”

  Valerian took heart from the future tense. The conditional—Papa would be difficult—would have been less encouraging.

  “To secure your hand, even to secure permission to seek your hand, I must be willing to contend with difficulty.”

  The horses picked their way back down the slope, and Valerian let the quiet of the summer day sink into his bones. He’d broached the topic. The lady replied if and when she was so inclined. As much as he wanted to beg Emily to look at him, to put him out of his torment, he wanted even more for Emily’s answer to be her own considered decision.

  “You have said you lack the means to take a wife. Did you forget that you own an entire estate, Valerian?”

  “Fair question, and yes, to be honest. I had put from my mind that I had either a right to rent or to occupancy where Abbotsford was concerned. The current tenant is a widow with three sons, and she needed every groat to keep the farm going when her husband died. I fell out of the habit of collecting the rent, but she recently caught up the arrears. My tenant is soon to remarry, and her intended is a man of means.”

  “You fell out of the habit of collecting rent. Rent is not the handkerchief we neglect to stash in a pocket, but you… Three boys, you say?”

  “They were all under the age of thirteen when their father died. The oldest will soon be eighteen. I expect you’ll meet him and the rest of his family at the assembly.”

  Failing to collect rent probably struck Osgood Pepper’s daughter as proof of witlessness. Why hadn’t Valerian seen that?

  “My brother Hawthorne wants to rent a portion of the arable land, and he will insist on paying his rent timely.”

  “I should hope so.”

  Whatever did that terse tone mean? “I’d like to show you the house. The family is away visiting relatives, and I told them I might stop by in their absence.”

  Emily rode the rest of the way up the drive in silence, and Valerian concluded he’d misread an important situation entirely. The lady hadn’t refused him, but Emily Pepper was a considerate, kindhearted woman. She would let a fellow down gently and choose her words carefully.

  Just because a lady enjoyed kissing a man didn’t mean she contemplated a lifetime at his side.

  The temptation to argue, to scrap and fight for what he wanted, lost the battle to an ingrained habit of gentlemanly consideration. Valerian assisted Emily to dismount and tied the horses to the hitching post.

  “You need not indulge me in this inspection of the premises,” he said, withdrawing a key from his pocket. “I would like a woman’s opinion on the place, though. I’ve bided at Dorning Hall because Casriel was off in Town, and somebody needed to keep an eye on the ancestral pile.”

  That was even the truth. Then too, the cottage at the Hall was Valerian’s to use at no cost, and that had mattered too much.

  “I like the roses,” Emily said. “I like that one approaches the front door assailed by a pleasant fragrance. All the roses at Pepper Ridge are planted too far from the house. The scent neither wafts in through the windows most days, nor graces the entrances. One must hike to enjoy it, and for Papa that was nearly impossible until recently.”

  An odd little speech. Rather than reply, Valerian unlocked the front door. He hadn’t been inside this house in more than two years, but Marie was an impeccable housekeeper. The floors gleamed with polish, the windows sparkled, and not a speck of dust was to be seen.

  “Stuffing a house full of furniture sucks up the light,” Emily said, peering around the foyer. “I like this openness.”

  What she referred to as openness was simply the typical functionality of a country dwelling. Pegs along the wall of the entranceway provided a place to hang cloaks and hats. A small deal table held a woven reed basket for mail. Several pairs of house slippers were arranged beneath the table. No heavy, elaborately carved sideboard crowded the space, no fancy ferns blocked the windows. A pot of violets sat on one windowsill, a tabby cat with a white bib sat on the other.

  “Hello,” Emily said, stroking the cat’s head. “Are you guarding the castle?”

  “He looked to be taking a nap in his owner’s absence.” What a lovely picture Emily made, petting the cat in the slanting sunbeams. Valerian wanted to tell her that she belonged here, not in the rambling ostentation of Pepper Ridge, but he instead hung up her cloak and bonnet and held his peace.

  “Let’s start belowstairs,” she said. “I always have the sense of exploring pirate caves when I venture into the kitchens and pantries. The staff doesn’t forbid me to pry, but neither are they glad to see me where I don’t belong.”

  “You belong wherever you need to be to run a proper household. The cook and housekeeper might not appreciate an unannounced inspection, but one must wonder why. If your expectations are reasonable, then an occasional peek at the larders or scullery should be of no moment.”

  “Not to hear Briggs tell it. A lady never descends below the main floor. She summons the staff, and they endure the awkwardness of an interview abovestairs.”

  “How many homes has Briggs actually managed? And how many of those homes were in the country, as opposed to the rarefied confines of Town?”

  “Briggs was raised genteelly enough, but her father and then her brother fell on hard times, and their situation did not end well. She tries to help me avoid missteps, but
you have a point. A general doesn’t send his junior officer to review the troops. That would be bad for morale and give the junior officer airs.”

  Emily peered at some children’s sketches framed above the mantel of the formal parlor, her expression unreadable. “I believe this is supposed to be a knight charging at a dragon, while a fair maid watches from her tower.”

  “Boys draw those scenes and then give them to their mamas.” Some boys. Valerian’s sketching had been so overshadowed by Oak’s talent, he hadn’t bothered inflicting his art on his mother.

  They wandered through the spotless kitchen and tidy pantries, into a pair of comfortable parlors, and then to an estate office. The office struck Valerian as a cross between a lady’s personal sitting room and his father’s study. He saw stacks of correspondence, a scarred blotter, and glass-fronted cabinets full of pamphlets, treatises, and ledgers, but also lace curtains that let in plenty of light, a crocheted shawl draped over the back of the sofa, and another pot of violets on the windowsill.

  “Your tenant has a way with violets.”

  “She’s done a good job with the farm too.”

  Emily sniffed at the violets and pressed a finger to the soil in the crock. “Did you ever consider marrying her?”

  “Yes.”

  She watered the flowers from a decanter on a credenza behind the desk. “But?”

  “But Marie dearly loved her husband, and to yoke herself to another man whom she didn’t love, simply to keep a roof over her children’s heads, would have been a poor bargain for the lady. She’d be left with the husband of necessity long after the children are grown.”

  That speech likely did not help his cause any more than forgetting to collect the rent had.

  Emily set down the decanter. “Let’s look at the bedrooms.”

  Valerian was not particularly in the mood to look at the bedrooms. He was in the mood to take himself out behind the hog house and beat his head against a tree. If ever a courtship had been given an inauspicious start, it was this one.

  He nonetheless trooped with Emily to the highest floor, which held the nursery and children’s rooms as well as accommodations for servants. The middle floor included a master suite, a family sitting room, and three guest rooms, all of which were appointed in a tidy, comfortable style.

  “What I like most about this place is how unpretentious it is,” Emily said, perusing a spare bedroom done up in green and white. “No traipsing halfway to Bournemouth to get from the bedroom down to breakfast and then the same distance to retrieve a shawl. We could turn one of these spare bedrooms or parlors into a library.”

  She ran a hand over a patchwork quilt done in squares of white and green with fanciful blue embroidery. Valerian was at first too absorbed watching her palm stroke over the bedcovers to catch the import of her words.

  “We could? We could turn this room into a library?”

  “One could. How long did you allow your tenants to live here without paying rent, Valerian?”

  One could prevaricate, one could even lie, but not to Emily, not today. “Five years. From the time Mrs. Cummings became a widow. Threatening her with eviction over rent she would struggle to pay was beyond me. Boys need to eat, they outgrow boots as fast as the cobbler can make them, and seed costs money.”

  “You gave her five years to make a go of this place?”

  “She paid every penny, Emily.”

  “Do you enjoy teaching a bunch of clodhopping young people how to dance?”

  What that had to do with anything, Valerian did not know. “I do, actually. Somebody needs to teach them, and they enjoy learning.”

  “You are hopeless,” she said, opening an empty wardrobe and sending a gust of cedar scent into the air. “Did you enjoy setting up the books for your family’s business?”

  Hadn’t they already discussed that? “No, but it had to be done, and Kettering, who might have stepped in, has his hands quite full with his own ventures.” Or perhaps Casriel had forbidden Worth to stick his nose in Dorning business.

  “And you are becoming the magistrate,” Emily said, “so that your brother, the almighty earl, can be spared the terrible burden of spending a morning every other week or so sorting out his neighbors’ troubles.”

  “The earl is a busy man, and—”

  Emily crossed the bedroom, coming to a halt directly before Valerian. “Do you know what my father does?”

  Valerian knew the conversation wasn’t going at all in the direction he’d hoped. “Mr. Pepper is basically a mercer, trading in wholesale cloth and soft goods, and he’s built a very successful enterprise that extends far beyond English shores.”

  “Papa is a man who looks at every situation in terms of what he can take from it. He’s patient, and he stays within the bounds of the law, but he is driven by self-interest. His scheme to marry me to a wealthy squire is predicated on the gain his grandsons would reap from that union.

  “He promoted Caleb and Tobias,” she went on, pacing away, “because they, too, are defined by self-interest. They drive a hard bargain, they are shrewd, they mind their pence and quid. We have any number of phrases lauding the ambition of such men, and what is the result? Some of them eventually do break the law.”

  She turned and marched back to face Valerian directly. “Others end up like Papa, buying a home that could house regiments, when he hadn’t even the energy to inspect his own premises.”

  From that tirade, Valerian grasped that Emily was upset, though not with him. “Ambition is generally a good thing.” He had ambitions, for example, and they included a life with Emily.

  “Ambition can be wonderful, if, like your tenant, that ambition is attached to a desire to provide for loved ones, to care conscientiously for property, to make a happy place for one’s old age. Ambition attached to greed is honestly boring, if not downright silly. What is the point of fitting out Pepper Ridge?”

  “To make a lovely home?”

  “For one old man who will likely decamp for Town as soon as he’s married me off? This is a lovely home. That sketch over the mantel, the slippers lined up in the foyer, this quilt, likely made by some auntie who remembers each nephew’s birthday.” Emily grabbed him by the lapels. “You made this possible for them. You made that whole botanical business possible for your family.”

  “My father did that, with all of his collections and cultivations. Casriel had the inspiration, and we’ve all pitched in.” They’d had little choice but to pitch in, now that Valerian thought about it.

  Emily leaned closer, so he could see the bronze, chocolate, and gold hues blending in her irises. “The lilies of Dorning Hall’s fields require somebody to harvest them and market them, which I gather your brothers can do, but to turn that effort into a business took somebody willing to mind the books.”

  She shook him gently by the lapels. “You make it possible for Casriel to be the earl and doting paterfamilias he longs to be. You make it possible for the young couples in this shire to have a bit of diversion away from gossiping tongues and judging eyes. You gave a widow five years to get back on her feet, and in those five years, her sons grew up enough to learn to help their mama make a go of this place.”

  Emily kissed him, hard. “You have this… this ability to see what’s needed, without prejudice or judgment. You look at a situation for where you can be of use, where you can make a contribution. You aren’t dodging about, angling for what you can stash in your pocket, even when your pockets are already full. That is so rare, Valerian, so blasted scrumptious I nearly want to gobble you up.”

  “Gobble me up?”

  She nodded, gaze wary as she smoothed her fingers over his wrinkled lapels.

  “Gobble me up, as in marry me?”

  “The sooner the better.”

  A breeze fluttered the curtain, and Valerian felt the current of warmth straight to the bottom of his heart. He wasn’t sure what all her rhetoric had been about—God willing, they’d have a lifetime to sort out philosophies and fami
ly quirks—but for right now, he gathered Emily into his arms and took the space of three heartbeats to thank heaven for his great good fortune.

  “Valerian?”

  “Let the gobbling begin.”

  Chapter Nine

  “This is…” Worth Kettering frowned at the document in his hands. “This is charming, dammit. My love, why did you never tell me you have a brother capable of charm?”

  Jacaranda took up a brush from the low table between her chair and Worth’s. “Andromeda, come.” A large, toothy canine rose from beside Worth’s chair and ambled across the terrace’s flagstones to prop her chin on Jacaranda’s knee. “All of my brothers are charming, when they want to be. My husband is too. Are you reading some of Ash’s poetry?”

  “Good God, there’s a poet in the Dorning forest? Am I to find him a publisher too?”

  Jacaranda drew the brush down the dog’s back. “If you’re not reading Ash’s poetry, what are you reading?”

  “Valerian’s book on social conventions. Sycamore informed me that publishers don’t tend to frequent his gambling establishment, having daily opportunities to lose money already handily located in their literary ventures. I am to have a look at the damned manuscript, to quote your baby brother, and mention it to the right people.”

  “Who would those people be?”

  The dog’s gaze acquired the sort of glazed expression Worth would soon be wearing if he continued to watch Jacaranda grooming the dratted beast. He loved her hands, loved the competence of them, and the grace, and how when she touched him, he knew it was her without looking even if she merely brushed his sleeve in a crowd.

  “I have avoided the scribblers generally,” Worth said. “Sycamore is right that the publishing business is unpredictable. One year, Byron is all the rage, then he’s in complete disgrace, and his maunderings sell even better than they did when he was all the rage. The next year, it’s some die-away recluse writing about monks and knights, the year after that a tattling viscountess wielding thinly veiled satire. I can predict prices for wheat and barley or see a trend in demand for lumber or Italian silk. The business of selling books has too much of alchemy about it.”