The Earl and the Hoyden Page 14

  ‘We are learning the signs for some useful daily phrases, Miss Cartwright,’ Miles told her. ‘Things like “I am hungry” and “Hurry up” and “It is time for dinner”.’

  ‘And “I am pleased to see you”,’ Roland added, pointing at his own eyes and then at her and smiling broadly.

  ‘We will not speak aloud at all,’ Miles admonished.

  The lesson continued amid much hilarity, but they did not forget that it was Tommy who was being taught and he was included in everything they attempted. His mother had not stayed with him today; one of the little ones was unwell and she had returned to the sickbed.

  ‘I will take him home,’ Charlotte said when the lesson ended. ‘I can ask after the sick one at the same time.’ She turned to Tommy and successfully made him understand he was to go to the stables and have her curricle brought to the door. Grinning from ear to ear, he sped off to do her bidding.

  ‘We are making great strides,’ Miles said. ‘Far better than I had hoped for, but I wonder at you both treating it so lightly.’

  ‘You said yourself we must make it seem like play,’ Roland said as they made their way down to the ground floor. ‘He is happy about the lessons and learning fast. We shall soon be able to move on to teaching him to read and write. That will open a whole new vista for him.’

  ‘You would make a scholar of him?’ Charlotte queried.

  ‘Why not? Every child, however poor, deserves an education. I know you agree with that, for you teach your workers.’ He paused and gave her a smile that found its way to treacly brown eyes and crinkled the corners of his mouth. ‘I am persuaded we have more in common than we have in dissent, Miss Cartwright.’

  They had arrived in the front hall and she did not point out that he was the one causing dissent by insisting on continuing with that lawsuit. If he would only hint that he might drop it, she would gladly come to some accommodation with him, give him the title to the land and retain the mining rights perhaps. But he had to make the first move.

  The door was open and Tommy stood at the head of the pony, waiting for her. ‘Will you not stay for refreshment?’ Roland asked. ‘We could explore the common ground.’

  ‘No, I am afraid I cannot. I have a guest and must return to Mandeville or she will think I have deserted her.’ She paused. ‘Do you know if the Countess is at home this afternoon? I thought of calling on her with my great-aunt.’

  ‘I believe she may be. If not, she will be here. You are welcome at either place.’

  ‘Thank you, my lord.’

  She signalled to Tommy to climb into the curricle, bowed her head to Roland and Miles, and made her way down the steps to join the boy.

  Roland watched her drive away, as capable as ever at handling the ribbons, and gave a huge sigh. Was he making any progress at demolishing the wall she had built about herself? She had seemed more at ease today and the fact that she wanted to pay a call on his mother must mean something. He had better go and see what Mama was doing that afternoon.

  Roland was with the Countess at the dower house when Lady Ratcliffe and Charlotte, who was dressed becomingly in a pale blue muslin gown with a lace cape and puffed sleeves, were announced. His presence took Charlotte by surprise, but it was no greater than Lady Ratcliffe’s astonishment on being presented and discovering that there was a handsome young Earl living not five miles from Mandeville. She quickly established he was not married and lacked nothing in manners. Whatever was Charlotte thinking of, not to cultivate so eligible a bachelor right on her doorstep?

  ‘What do you think of Amerleigh?’ the Countess asked her, dispensing tea.

  ‘It is very pleasant, my lady, and the countryside is charming. At least it is at this time of the year. I collect it is not so agreeable in winter.’

  ‘No, it was particularly bad in the early part of this year. We were cut off by snow for weeks.’

  ‘How long do you stay, my lady?’ Roland asked. He was sitting on a high-backed chair, while the ladies occupied the sofas. It made him appear even taller.

  ‘As long as I am needed.’

  ‘Needed?’ he queried, looking at Charlotte with one eyebrow raised.

  ‘Oh, yes. My great-niece is needful of my assistance in the matter of a ball and her come-out.’

  Roland, who had been about to take a sip of his tea, spluttered with laughter. His mother looked anxiously at him and Lady Ratcliffe looked affronted. As for Charlotte, she was at first inclined to be angry, but then found her own lips twitching. ‘I never said anything about a come-out, Aunt,’ she said.

  ‘You cannot have a ball without coming out first,’ her ladyship insisted. ‘It is not the thing. Am I not right, Countess?’

  Lady Amerleigh appeared to be considering her answer carefully and her eyes were twinkling too. Charlotte wondered if her aunt was being made fun of, but decided the Countess was much too polite to do such a thing. ‘In London, yes,’ her ladyship said slowly. ‘But we are far from the capital here and Miss Cartwright’s circumstances are exceptional.’

  ‘So they may be, but if she is to marry well, then we must do the thing properly.’

  ‘I will not go to London,’ Charlotte said firmly. ‘I am far too busy to contemplate it; besides, I have no wish to marry and would look very foolish among all the young débutantes.’

  ‘I think we may safely assume Miss Cartwright is already well and truly out,’ Roland put in, looking at Charlotte with a teasing smile that told her plainly she had not heard the last of that particular topic from him. She must extricate herself somehow and take her aunt away before she made an even bigger fool of herself.

  ‘Lady Ratcliffe has come to help me arrange a costume ball,’ she said. ‘I have been persuaded I ought to give one, but I do not have the time to devote to organising it.’

  ‘When is it to be?’ the Countess asked.

  ‘I have not decided the date. It depends on so many things, but perhaps the last Saturday in June. Would that be convenient for you, my lady?’

  ‘I am still in mourning, Miss Cartwright.’

  ‘Yes, but it will be six months since your husband died—could you not go into half-mourning and grace it with your presence, even for a short time? No one will think ill of you for it.’

  ‘Oh, go on, say yes, Mama,’ Roland put in.

  ‘I will think about it.’

  Having successfully diverted attention from the matter of a come-out, Charlotte decided it was time they took their leave and rose to go. Roland accompanied them to the door and was surprised to see, not the curricle and its patient pony, but a grand carriage and four. First the feminine dress and now the carriage—did it mean Charlotte was trying to change? He was not sure he liked the idea. He bowed to Lady Ratcliffe as he handed her in and then turned to do the same office for Charlotte, taking her hand and giving the fingers a little squeeze, as he did so. The door was shut and he stood back as the coachman set the equipage in motion. Charlotte, leaning forward to look out of the window, saw him standing in exactly the same pose, feet apart, hand slightly uplifted, the wind ruffling his hair, until they turned out of the drive and he was lost to view.

  ‘My goodness, Charlotte,’ Emily said. ‘I had heard of the Earl of Amerleigh, but I had no idea he was so young and handsome, nor that he resided in Shropshire. And so near to you too. I collect he is unmarried.’

  ‘He has but lately come into his inheritance, Aunt. Before that he was in the army in Portugal. His late father let the estate run down, but he is busy setting all to rights.’ She paused. ‘And you may take that gleam out of your eye. I am not going to set myself up to snare him. We are at daggers drawn.’

  ‘Daggers drawn! I saw no sign of that. He appeared good-natured and polite…’

  ‘So he may be, but I have not always found it so. He can also be top lofty and obstinate.’

  Her ladyship laughed. ‘I think the kettle is calling the pot black, my dear.’

  ‘Perhaps, but I do not want you matchmaking. There is enough
of that going on in the village already and the poor man is besieged.’

  ‘Ah, so he is a poor man, is he?’

  ‘I have no idea of his wealth, but he is spending a great deal of money restoring Amerleigh Hall and the estate.’

  ‘Ready for his Countess.’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Would you not like to be a Countess?’

  ‘I never thought of it, being ineligible.’

  ‘On account of not being aristocratic enough? Wealth can overcome that, you know, especially if the young man is short of funds.’

  ‘Not that young man, Aunt,’ Charlotte said very firmly, reminded of his rejection of her six years before, just when she was beginning to push it to the back of her mind. ‘Roland Temple will not be bought and I will not stoop to try it. I do not want to marry. If I did, I would have to hand over all I own to my husband, who could ruin everything if he so chose and I could not do a thing to prevent it. And I should lose my independence, the freedom to please myself what I do, where I go, what I choose to spend my money on. I would be no better than a chattel.’

  ‘How hard you are, child. It is your father made you like that, for your mother never was. A gentler creature never breathed. But she could be stubborn too. We all told her she would rue the day she married your father, but she would not listen. Two years later she was dead, God rest her soul.’

  ‘That was not Papa’s fault. I believe he idolised her.’

  ‘I am surprised he did not make a push to see you settled before he died. He should have given you a Season. I would have been pleased to have you stay with me and brought you out myself. Now, we must try to remedy the situation before it is too late.’

  ‘Aunt, it is already too late. I simply want to give a masked ball. Everyone of consequence in the area has been getting up lavish entertainment to celebrate the end of the war and I do not want to be the odd one out. I want my ball to be the best, the most sumptuous, the most talked about in the whole county. And I do not care what it costs.’

  Lady Ratcliffe turned to Charlotte in surprise and realised there was more to this than the holding of a ball. Her niece had suddenly become aware of what she had missed in her youth and her ladyship was prepared to gamble it had a great deal to do with the Earl of Amerleigh. She smiled to herself; she had not arrived a moment too soon.

  Their next call was on Lady Brandon, who was a very different being from the Countess. She was a prattler, full of herself and her family, of Martha in particular who had so cleverly attracted the attentions of the Earl of Amerleigh. ‘Have you met the Earl, my lady?’ she asked Emily.

  ‘Yes, he was with the Countess when we called. A very personable young man.’

  ‘Oh, yes, he is, is he not? Somewhat pinched in the pocket, I understand, though that is of little account. Brandon has told him that Martha is an heiress in her own right. He is very particular in his attentions to her, you know, and we are hopeful of a happy outcome very soon.’ She turned to Charlotte. ‘Have you decided on the ball?’

  ‘Yes, it is why I have asked my aunt to stay. She is going to organise it for me.’ She kept her voice carefully controlled, though Lady Brandon’s confidence was making her wonder how far matters had really gone between the Earl and Martha.

  ‘Indeed, I am surprised, considering I offered to help you,’ the lady said huffily. ‘I would have taken all the hard work out of it for you.’

  Charlotte realised her friend’s show of hurt was on account of not being able to boast that Miss Cartwright had no idea how to organise a ball and without her help it would have been a very sorry affair indeed. ‘I am sure you would, Catherine,’ she said carefully. ‘But I know you are very busy yourself, but no doubt Aunt Emily will be glad of any help you can afford her.’

  ‘Tell me, is the Earl really going to offer for her daughter?’ Emily asked, when they were once more on their way.

  ‘I have no idea. It is none of my business.’

  ‘Then you must make it your business.’

  ‘Certainly not!’ Charlotte exclaimed.

  ‘I shall make it mine to find out.’

  ‘No doubt everyone will find out in due course. At the moment I am more concerned with making my ball a success.’

  ‘Very well, let us talk about the ball, considering you have given me less that three weeks to have everything ready. If you want to have a full ballroom, the sooner you issue the invitations the better. Have you made a list?’ Emily asked.

  ‘I have made a start.’

  ‘Good. Have you decided on any of the other necessities: musicians, food and drink, flowers, extra staff, your own costume?’

  ‘No, that is why I asked you to help me. Apart from choosing my costume, you may have the ordering of it all.’

  ‘Then we had best go into Shrewsbury tomorrow and make a start,’ Emily announced.

  ‘You go. Take Lady Brandon with you. She knows all the best shops. I have to go to the mill.’

  ‘Charlotte, I despair of you,’ her ladyship said. ‘Do you never think of anything but work?’

  ‘Of course I do, but it is a particularly difficult time at the moment. We have a large order to fulfil and I am waiting on a consignment of cotton yarn from the spinners that is late. I must chase up our suppliers.’

  She forgot all about the ball when she arrived at the mill next morning to be told that the yarn had still not arrived. ‘I sent over to Langhams and they said the raw cotton had not arrived from Liverpool,’ William Brock told her. Mr Langham, who conducted his business from premises just outside Shrewsbury, employed an army of spinners who turned the raw cotton into yarn, which he was contracted to pass on to Cartwright’s for weaving. ‘I am told the Fair Charlie is overdue. There have been storms at sea.’

  Running short had never happened before, but the Fair Charlie had never been delayed by more than a few days before, and she had taken on more orders than usual. She had been remiss in not making provision for such an eventuality and realised, to her chagrin, that she had allowed herself to become distracted by the Earl of Amerleigh and the social events in the village, which she had never previously bothered with, not to mention indulging herself going to Tommy’s lessons when she should have been at work. ‘There are always storms at sea. I came through one myself not three months since. The ship has always been able to weather them.’

  ‘Then let us hope that it will do so this time.’

  She mulled over the possibilities and remedies as she drove back to Mandeville. If the ship did not come in soon, she would have to find an alternative source of supply to keep the weavers busy.

  At home again, she found Lady Ratcliffe entertaining Lady Brandon to tea and going over long lists of things they had ordered and others they still needed. As the money for it was not coming out of their purses, they had been more than extravagant, but considering she had said she did not care how much the ball cost, she made no comment on it.

  ‘What about your costume?’ Lady Brandon asked her. ‘Have you given a thought to it?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘We discovered a place in Shrewsbury that has all manner of costumes for rent. I have chosen mine and so has Martha. Why not go there?’

  ‘I will see what they have to offer when I go into town next time.’

  The next week was a worrying time and she could not give her mind to her costume or even to the ball, but as the two ladies more than made up for her deficiency, the arrangements were coming along nicely, which was more than could be said for the work at the mill. Rumours were flying round that the Fair Charlie had been lost and, when there was no more yarn to weave, all the workers would be laid off. It took all her time to reassure her workforce that such was not the case, especially as the supplies in the stockroom were dwindling to an alarming degree. Mr Brock had taken it upon himself to discharge one man, an overseer called Josh Younger, who was intent on exaggerating the rumours. ‘He was making everyone discontented,’ Brock told her when she questioned his decision. �
��I had no choice.’

  There was nothing for it but to go to Liverpool and find out what was happening herself.

  ‘You can’t go now,’ Emily complained when she told her. ‘You will not be back in time for the ball.’

  ‘Of course I will. It is over a week away and you have everything in hand. I shall be gone no longer than I have to be.’

  ‘Who is to go with you?’

  ‘No one, except Talbot to drive the coach.’

  ‘Charlotte, ladies do not travel around the countryside unaccompanied. Anything could happen.’

  ‘I am not a lady, nor ever will be.’

  She pretended not to hear her great-aunt’s murmur, ‘You will be if I have anything to do with it,’ as she left the room to give orders for the coach to be readied and a groom sent ahead on horseback to arrange post horses.

  Roland had not seen Charlotte for days. She had not attended the lessons, nor even been seen in the village. He missed her. He missed their wrangling, her chuckle of humour as she bested him in some argument. He missed her gentle care of Tommy, her understanding of the boy’s needs, her fire when roused. And he enjoyed rousing her.

  ‘Why not go and see if anything is wrong?’ his mother suggested, when he voiced his concern. She had come up to the Hall to supervise the hanging of new curtains in the drawing room and they were enjoying a break for refreshment.

  ‘Why would there be anything wrong? She is no doubt too busy organising the ball.’

  ‘Then you have answered your own question. However, it is not only the ball, but her business that keeps her. I have heard rumours…’

  ‘Rumours? What rumours?’

  ‘The Cartwright mill is having trouble keeping the looms supplied with yarn.’