“With a good harvest, though the place is in need of improvements. I would like to see what Lord Darien has done with The Revels. He tells me he designed a canal for Bellamy. I have considered one for shipping our butter.”
“You do have the most excellent butter,” Clarinda said. “I shall call for tea and some bread. I think Lord Langford would like a taste.” She rang a small bell and spoke in a quiet undertone to the maid who appeared.
“Something in the water, do you suppose?” Darien asked, watching Henrietta set another neat, careful stitch.
“No, I think it is the feed. Our milk is very sweet.” She tugged slightly at the thread, and he grimaced. She sponged away the drop of blood with her saline rinse. The marquess watched her, an alert, calculating expression in his eyes.
“Objection three,” Henrietta said. “Darien needs a fashionable wife. I would be a terrible hostess. I have very radical opinions.”
“Henry has a deplorable sense of style,” Darien told his father. “She won’t spend a sovereign more than she must to clothe herself, and she’ll let anyone dress her. She’ll never bankrupt her husband with gowns and fripperies.”
“I have Duprix to dress me, thank you,” Henrietta said. She tied off the thread, then leaned forward and bit through it. “Have you told your father I was taken up by the watch?”
“Put in the bridewell?” The marquess recoiled.
“Yes, political dissenter,” Darien said solemnly. “Had to go myself and bail her out, with the help of her uncle—you know Sir Pelton, I’m sure. Pitt’s cracking down on public debates, andHenry got herself caught up with the London Corresponding Society. Put Pitt’s nose quite out of joint.”
“He could use it,” the marquess said. “Can’t say I hold with Fox and all his pot-stirring, but Pitt’s a mushroom trying to get out of his father’s shade. Do him good to have some air let out.” He regarded Henrietta with narrowed eyes. “Bluestocking, are you?”
“It is my dearest hope to be made a votary of the Minerva Society,” she confirmed. “Lady Bessington has been a mentor and a great inspiration to me.”
“Ah, Bess,” the marquess said, and his face softened with a memory that lit his eyes and made his mouth curve in a smile. “There’s not many a dame like her anymore. She reminds me a good deal of my marchioness.”
“I do wish I could have met Lady Langford,” Clarinda murmured. “I’m told she was a great one for causes, and very clever besides.”
“Translated Italian poetry,” the marquess said with a proud smile. “Work of some Renaissance poet. Febea, I think.”
Henrietta put down her sponge. “Febea!” she exclaimed. “The Earl of Warrefield has a copy of herOrlando Furioso. It was a very small printing, and I’ve never found a copy of my own.”
“Well, I can give you one,” the marquess said grandly. “And perhaps let you look at a few of her old papers besides.”
“I’d be very much obliged to you,” Henrietta said, dazzled.
“But perhaps not until after you’ve had your tour of the King’s collection,” Darien said. “His Majesty envies Warrefield his catalogue so much that he’s considering hiring Henry to make one for him.”
“A commission from King George?” The marquess blinked. Not even he, with his rank, ran tame through BuckinghamHouse, where the royal family liked to withdraw from the public halls of St. James.
“We are losing sight of our objectives,” Henrietta scolded as Darien picked up his discarded shirt. “No, you needn’t wear that old thing. I’ve a fresh one for you.”
“I beg your pardon for my state, Clarinda,” Darien said, glancing at his hostess.
“No need,” Clarinda said with calm composure. “I am an old and happily married lady. Though Hetty is not.”
“He is my patient,” Henrietta said. Being this close to a nearly naked Darien made her stomach turn like churned butter, but it would gain her nothing to let the others see her in such a state. “Besides, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before. He looks just like Lord Ellesmere’s Apollo.”
Darien gave her a wicked smile as he handed her his rumpled shirt. “Are you comparing me to a Greek god?”
Vain, irritating man. Henrietta waved a hand toward his chest. “You must be aware of your…attributes.”
“I am,” Darien said smugly as he held out his arms. “But I didn’t thinkyouwere.”
Henrietta glanced at the marquess as Darien’s head disappeared into his shirt. His lordship’s ire had been replaced with a hungry, frightened look that she felt embarrassed to witness. Lord Langford had seen how close he’d come to losing son number three.
“So, class,” Darien said, his voice muffled as he emerged from the voluminous shirt. “Unfashionable dress, unfashionable opinions, and not enough money. Henry, I think you told me you have not much of a settlement.”
“True,” Henrietta agreed, arranging the ruffles of his shirtfront. She had the distracting urge to kiss his skin before it disappeared beneath his clothing. “I use my income fromJasper’s mills to improve Birch Vale, and Papa has settled most everything on Lady Mama and the babies, as he ought.”
“Ten thousand pounds for your dowry, Hetty,” Clarinda said mildly. “And the inheritance from your mother when you turn five and twenty?”
