Mr. Trelawney's Proposal

‘Yes, sir, I mean, Mr Trelawney. Well, sir, it’s nothing really, as I said, it’s just your brother…’ Judith tailed off and shuffled uncomfortably again.

Luke sighed out, ‘Yes, what now? Is he sliding down the banisters? Rolling drunk in the drawing room?’

‘No, sir. He’s…er…rolling dice with Joan and Sally…in the hallway. If you want dinner tonight, Mr Trelawney, he had best leave the girls be so I can get them to the vegetables.’ She rubbed appreciative hands together as she expounded, ‘It’s to be smoked trout and roast guinea fowl with roast potatoes and fruit tarts with cream and…’

‘And as you pass him in the hallway, Judith, tell him I want him, would you?’ Luke cut into her menu, a slow hand spanning his forehead, soothing his temples.

Judith bobbed a quick curtsy before bustling busily from the study.

Poking professionally about in his cavernous document case, Mr Willoughby seemed deaf to the unusual discourse. But he ruined his nonchalance by admitting with doleful sympathy, ‘I have a younger brother…’

Luke nodded acceptance of the man’s tacit condolences before getting back to business. ‘The Summer House Lodge…where is the lease for that building? I haven’t found it among any of the documents in this study. Do you hold it?’

‘The Summer House?’ Mr Willoughby repeated, a trifle surprised. ‘Oh, you won’t find any lease for that; there is none.’

Luke frowned enquiry across the desk at him. ‘Are you sure? The building is presently used as a small school, by Miss Rebecca Nash. She rents the premises on a lease, I would have thought.’

As Ross sauntered back into the room, Luke glanced up idly, scowling a little at his brother’s impenitent smile. Picking up the newspaper he had previously been reading, Ross strolled across to the window by Luke’s desk, as though enjoying better light there to study it.

‘Well, yes, she does reside there. But there is no lease,’ Willoughby confirmed as his pale eyes darted from one brother to the other.

‘Why not?’ Luke asked a little too quietly.

Willoughby noisily cleared his throat and slid nervous fingers between his stiff collar and his warming neck as he sensed an atmosphere fomenting. ‘There was never any need of one,’ he quickly advised Luke. ‘Robin Ramsden and Miss Nash appeared to have…an agreement. She just resides and works there and he—’ He broke off, desperately seeking the right words, aware of two sets of brown eyes watching him now. The silence strained interminably.

‘And he…?’ Luke finally prompted him, in a voice that was silky with danger, while his eyes relentlessly pinned down the weak blue ones seeking to evade him.

‘And he allowed her to,’ Mr Willoughby concluded quickly, pleased with his innocuous phrasing. It didn’t have the desired effect of diverting Luke Trelawney’s piercing gaze.

‘Possibly he took pity on her…because of the tragedy which occurred some five years ago,’ Willoughby suggested hastily. ‘It would have been about the same time she took up residence at the Summer House. Yes, that must have been it.’ He nodded, sure he had now satisfactorily managed a delicate situation.

‘Tragedy…?’

Just one soft word coupled with a penetrating, fierce stare and Victor Willoughby readily explained. ‘Miss Nash lost both her parents in a carriage accident in the winter snows. Within the same week she learned of the death of her fiancé in the Peninsula…er…he was a captain in the Hussars, I believe. Then her brother disappeared, too. That I believe was, financially, the crux of the matter. For her brother held the purse strings on her father’s death. He was charged with administering her small inheritance for her but no one could find him. I believe they still can’t.’ He licked dry lips and glanced warily at Luke Trelawney, noting his narrow-eyed thoughtfulness.

‘And Robin Ramsden‥?’ Luke interrogated him calmly.

‘And Robin Ramsden appeared to take her under his protection…er…I mean to say, he looked after her, so to speak,’ Mr Willoughby flustered, unwilling to imply too much of what he had never been certain. He had his own theories but he was not going to voice them. Definitely not to this man who had become rather daunting in the past few minutes.

Miss Nash was a lovely woman…he had seen her once or twice and had drawn the only logical conclusion he could for his late client’s continuing aid and protection. This new lord of the manor seemed also to have taken an immediate personal interest in her. It was no concern of his…but she was very beautiful…

Luke shoved back in his chair and stood up. He walked to the window and stared out, appearing oblivious to his brother barely a yard away, even though Ross’s anxious hazel eyes followed his movements. But Luke was peripherally aware of Willoughby behind him, gathering together his papers and stuffing them abruptly into his case in readiness to depart.

A hard, humourless smile curved Luke’s mouth as he finally allowed himself to concentrate fully on Rebecca. It was all beginning to fall into place. What a gullible fool he’d been and that rankled. Everyone knew him for a cynic. No wonder she had been prepared to speak to Robin Ramsden on his behalf when believing he’d been discovered trespassing. Using charm and influence on the lord of this Manor was, by all accounts, nothing new for her. Well, that would suit him damn fine. There was no need for that to change.

Whatever Robin Ramsden had provided for her over the years, he knew he could improve on…a thousandfold. And he’d believed her to be some chaste provincial maid he would need to proposition with utmost care. She’d cried on learning of Robin Ramsden’s death. Was it the man or the meal ticket she mourned? he wondered. Perhaps it was the prospect of losing her home…the schoolbuilding. What was she teaching there, in any case? If provocative Miss Mayhew, the young temptress he recalled from the woodland pond, was an untried schoolgirl, then…Ross was teetotal.

What did it matter? Rebecca had obviously fallen on hard times five years ago and had survived in any way she could. It was a commonplace tale.

He had already decided to take her with him and this changed nothing. Logically it made things easier, he acknowledged with a callous smile. He could now proposition her without risking having her outraged or hysterical. Even enthusiastic virgins were damn hard to tutor and sometimes barely worth the trouble. By the time they were adaptable and accomplished he was usually bored and looking elsewhere.

He thought of Wenna, something he hadn’t done for a week or more. He was bored and looking elsewhere, he acknowledged sourly, yet she had always been the perfect mistress. Passionate, obliging, skilful, discreet, faithful…the list was endless. One of his large, dark hands curled into a fist. She’d suited him fine until he’d come here.

Chapter Four

‘Lucy!’ Rebecca’s low disciplined voice carried easily in the quiet room and brought the girl’s brunette head directly around. Rebecca pointed indicatively at the book in front of her on the pine desk and mouthed, ‘Read!’

Once Lucy’s attention was once more with her work, Rebecca glared at John. The young carpenter shifted from the open doorway where he had been loitering under the pretext of examining its battered wooden framework.

Rebecca quietly left her own desk and, passing the few younger day girls who were chalking on small blackboards, entered the kitchen. John was kneeling on the floor, replacing tools in a canvas holdall.

‘The work must be finished now, John, surely?’ she asked the fair-haired youth. He scrambled up then, reddening, and she realised that he hadn’t heard her approach. He tugged at a lock of sun-bleached hair hanging low over one eye.

‘Yes, m’m…’ he mumbled. ‘Just a few more rafters to look at under them slates…once rain eases off a bit.’

He had turned up, totally unexpectedly, within hours of Rebecca learning of Robin Ramsden’s death. The new master had sent him, John had shyly explained and he had set to work. Rebecca was grateful he had arrived so speedily too, for by dusk the first fat drops of rain were staining the dusty ground around the Summer House.

John had been back each of the three days since, awaiting a break in the showers to carry out repairs. That was the problem. While he innocently surveyed the internal structure of the Summer House for chores to occupy him until he could get back on the roof, Lucy was purposefully surveying him. He was now watching her back, Rebecca realised with alarm. Her small parlour-cum-schoolroom often now found him lurking in its vicinity.

‘You still here, young man?’ Martha greeted John jovially as she entered the kitchen with a basket of washing beneath one capable arm. ‘Just about got this lot dry between showers,’ she informed Rebecca in the next breath. ‘Waiting for them biscuits to get out the oven, I suppose,’ she again addressed the blond youth.

‘Well, I wouldn’t say no, Martha.’ He dodged her playful swipe at him.

‘You’d best get yourself up on that roof then and earn some. Rain’s eased off a bit now.’

He sauntered from the kitchen, cradling his prized tools beneath one arm.

‘Never going to rid ourselves of him now, are we?’ Martha mentioned with a shrewd meaningful look towards the parlour door.

Rebecca sighed, approached the open kitchen door, and surveyed the dripping landscape. ‘I’ll have to speak to Lucy again. She distracts him…’

‘Distracts him?’ Martha echoed with a derisive snort. ‘That young miss is a bundle of trouble, if you ask me. Why, even my old Gregory has had eyes made at him. Not that I’m worried…or he’s capable,’ she added with a good-natured smile. ‘But that young John…now there’s a different matter,’ she warned with a sage wagging of her grey head.

‘I know she tends to flirt,’ Rebecca admitted, biting anxiously at her bottom lip.

‘You’re looking a bit brighter today, if I may say so, Miss Becky,’ Martha changed the subject abruptly.

‘I do feel a little less anxious, Martha,’ she said quietly. ‘The shock of hearing of Robin’s death made me a little illogical. But since then I have been thinking…perhaps things aren’t quite so black. Now I have had time to consider…’ She sighed, reflecting that ‘consider’ hardly began to do justice to the sleepless, fretful nights she had endured since first learning of this tragedy. ‘I certainly can’t honestly blame Mr Trelawney for wanting to return to Cornwall or to the home and estates he has there. Nor could I have complained had he wanted to take up residence at Ramsden Manor and charge me rent for using this building. It is his property, after all, to do with as he wishes. Because Robin was so good to me I tend to forget that I am just here on sufferance. But Mr Trelawney has sent John to repair the roof, so with all things considered, he has been quite kind…quite nice…’

‘Gregory says he thinks the young master be quite taken with you too,’ Martha mentioned with an astute narrowed look at Rebecca, as she deftly folded laundry. ‘He says last time he laid eyes on his lordship, he were watching you walk away from him as though…’

‘He feels sorry for me,’ Rebecca cut in quietly. ‘He realises that I shall be dispossessed and is good enough to sympathise. But I shall manage. I believe it will be some months yet before the matter of the estate is settled. I must use that time to again search for Simon. And I must now succeed,’ she announced vehemently, concentrating on memories of her twenty-four-year-old brother and her inheritance, held within his grasp.

It wasn’t a great fortune. But her five thousand pounds was the dividing line between poverty and self-respect. It would have been her dowry on her marriage to David. It was hers by right and she now needed to invest it for her future; to keep her free of soul-destroying drudgery as a provincial governess or companion. For she was aware that very little else awaited her once her rent-free tenancy of the Summer House was terminated. She was a spinster of almost twenty-six now and meeting someone to love and marry was increasingly remote.

She rarely socialised. Even when in London with Elizabeth they had visited the theatre on only one occasion due to Elizabeth’s recent confinement.

There was always the chance that a widower with children might take her on and provide her with a reasonable life. She sighed wistfully, for the notion of a loveless, convenience marriage for respectability and shelter was dispiriting. Since David no one had attracted or excited her…Her meandering thoughts circled back to Luke Trelawney. Her heart rate increased and a spontaneous rush of blood stained her cheeks at what would have been her next thought. She abandoned it immediately.