“Lady Jane is of excellent birth,” his mother finally said. “The Mayhews are a fine family, even if their youngest daughter is a bit…out of the ordinary.”
“Have you met her?”
She paused a moment, considering before she spoke. “I’ve heard she is a great lover of nature.”
The naturalist. That’s what Marlow had called her. Even his mother had heard the gossip, and she was not one to seek it out.
“Lady Jane is very interested in plants and animals,” Rosalind said. “I’ve never met anyone like her, man or woman.”
When neither parent moved to silence her, she took it as permission to go on.
“From what I understand, she spends far more time in the gardens and forests of her family’s country estate than the drawing room. Hazel met Jane while June and her brother were courting; she told me Jane took tea at Arlington Hall once with a great streak of mud staining her gown’s hem.”
“You mustn’t repeat gossip,” the duchess chided. “I’m sure if such a thing happened, it was a mistake.”
Rosalind bowed her head, gently but duly chastened. Still, she met her brother’s gaze, expressing the reservations she wasn’t allowed to voice.
“I’m sure this young lady is kind-hearted, if she cares so for the natural world,” his father said. “It’s best to look for the good in everyone.”
“Especially since you have to marry her,” said Rosalind.
This time his father gave Rosalind a warning look. Few mortals had the courage to stand up to the exacting Duke of Lockridge. In fact, everything Townsend had learned of propriety and discipline, he’d learned at his father’s hand.
Which made it that much more difficult to imagine marrying an irregular sort of wife. Why, his own mother had flawless manners, had been held up to countless contemporaries as the very model of decorum.
“I can’t help thinking Jane and I won’t suit,” he murmured, draining his wine glass. Goodness, how much had he drunk today? Too much. “I fear we’ll have a disaster of a marriage.”
“Your father and I believed the same thing when we were engaged,” his mother said with a faint smile. “Things have a way of working themselves out.”
“Yes,” the duke agreed. “It’s hard to know if you’re suited to someone you haven’t even met. You must give this young woman a chance, and not depend upon other’s opinions of her character.”
“Lady Jane has been recently jilted, has she not?” His mother clicked her tongue. “Poor woman.”
“By Lord Hobart, for no cause at all,” said Rosalind. “That is not gossip,” she added, when her parents both turned to her. “It’s something that really happened. It’s hard to believe any man could be so heartless.”
Heartless. Townsend supposed he was heartless, because he wished he could jilt her too.
“Our engagement cannot be well known yet,” he said, grasping at any possibility of escape. “I have only told Marlow and Augustine.”
“At their homes?”
“At White’s,” he admitted.
His father rolled his eyes. “Then it’s well known.”
“Perhaps if I visited Lord Mayhew at once…right now…and explained everything.” It took all his courage to meet his father’s dark gaze. “Do you think I could…?” His shoulders slumped at the message he read there. “I’m trapped, aren’t I? There is nothing to be done.”
“Unfortunately, there is not.” The Duke of Lockridge didn’t temper his words or soften his frown. “You signed a contract, driven by vengeful intentions rather than regard for the lady in question. Sometimes the mistakes we make carry heavy consequences, son. There’s nothing to do now but welcome this Lady Jane into our family and accord her our affection and respect. Your mother and I must call on the Mayhews tomorrow to begin forming a deeper acquaintance. Don’t you think so, Aurelia?”
“Indeed,” she said, with reluctant finality.
“Lady Jane is in the country at the moment,” said Townsend. “Lord Mayhew is summoning her and her mother to London.”
“Then we shall await their arrival and pay a call.”
His father’s tone was immovable. Townsend’s satisfaction with his perfect act of revenge had ebbed into a haze of self-loathing, for he’d done this to himself. No matter that he still adored Ophelia; this strange Lady Jane would be his wife a few weeks’ hence because of his utter stupidity, and he couldn’t help feeling it was exactly what he deserved.
Chapter Two
Such a Prospect
Lady Jane McConall, the Earl of Mayhew’s youngest daughter, toiled patiently in her private garden, trying to undo the previous season’s damage to her spindly winter hollies. She was probably ruining her boots in the muddy snow, but she wished to save the shrubs if she could.
“These dastardly leaves,” she said, brushing them from the sparse branches and tucking them over the roots. “They blow here from the east meadow, as if we want them.” She was not sure what the word dastardly meant, but she’d overheard a gentleman using it in London, with the sort of vehemence that matched what she felt. “They’ll do better for you there, won’t they? Keeping your roots warm and protected from the snow?”
The plant didn’t answer her now, but it would, eventually, by growing healthier. As she picked off the sodden, smothering leaves, she could practically hear her holly breathe a sigh of relief.
“There, you see,” she said, finally exposing the knee-high bush to the winter sun. “That will be better for you, and you can grow up big and strong.” She stroked one of the deep green, pointed leaves. “And in the spring, the worms will come and work your soil, and make you oh, so happy.”
“Jane!” Her normally refined mother leaned from the parlor window and shouted her name. “Jane, what are you doing?”
She squinted up at her, hoping she wouldn’t see the mess she’d made of her boots. “I’m cleaning up the garden, mama. Is everything all right?”
“Goodness, what are you wearing? Is that Spencer’s coat?”
“Yes, one of his old ones. He said I could have it.”
Her cousin’s hunting coat was a lovely shade of brown, just right for disguising the mud she got all over herself, no matter how carefully she gardened. To that end, a great many of her gowns were shades of brown, too. It had become her favorite color, although her mother begged her to wear ivories and creams, and the pale pastels so popular with the ballroom debutantes in London.
Pastels had not kept Lord Hobart from breaking his engagement to her.
“You were told never to wear men’s clothing again,” her mother reminded her. “And what are you doing out here in the wind? Think of your complexion.”
“The hollies have been covered in oak leaves since autumn.”
She clicked her tongue. “You’re gardening? It’s freezing out. The ground is covered in snow.”
“Plants grow in every season,” she called back. “Even winter.”
“Jane, you must come inside at once. Your face will be chapped to a cherry. Please, this is not the time to worry about holly bushes. You won’t believe the letter your father’s just sent.”