Page 36 of The Gentlewoman Author

She slid her hand away, pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve, and began twisting it. “It will rain.”

Black clouds gathered, turning what had been a fair morning into an ominous afternoon. The weather could cut the day’s travel short. He ground his teeth, thinking of all the ways Savage had taken advantage of him. He’d taken his horses, used information about Miss Thorpe to convince her to elope. He was disrespectful and did not pay his portion of rooms they shared. Daniel hadn’t minded before, but he did now.

Though anxious to reach his father, Daniel had no choice but to do everything he could to find Savage, even if it meant postponing his arrival home. He was the idiot who had brought the cheat to Bath, introduced Miss Thorpe to Mr. Savage, and on more than one occasion had been pleased to leave Miss Thorpe in the company of the rotter.

Should he have mentioned their fathers’ intention for them to wed to Louisa? Would that have prevented her from running away or simply made the scandal even more salacious? And now that she was gone, who would take her place? How would he convince his father to give him Almery if there was no prospective wife?

With more time, he might try Mrs. Allen, a multi-faceted woman whose experience gave her a bloom beyond any girl enjoying her first dances. But she was not interested in a man such as himself. After what she told him the previous evening about her ideal marriage, it no longer puzzled him that she did not marry a second time. And Daniel could not offer her a union as loving as her previous had been.

From their conversations about poetry and novels, he had learned she was a romantic. She deserved to be adored in a way in which Daniel’s jaded self was not capable. The previous evening, she described a love so full and without resentment that he found himself craving it, while knowing he could never have it. People let him down. Betrayal patterned his life, and he could not trick himself into believing he would ever find someone who gave him the courage to share his heart, though her speech ignited a yearning for that very thing. What would it be like to be prized by such a woman?

Love did not benefit marriage. His mother’s infatuation with his father never wavered, regardless of the hardships he put her through. Daniel pitied her. His father took advantage of her love, even while loving her in return. If they did what was best for the other person rather than what a love-stricken fool might do, the whole family would be better off. Like his mother’s purchase of that reflecting telescope to which extravagance his father responded by sending his wife to the dressmaker. She’d needed the dresses, but not as much as the family required protection from the damp.

Mary’s leg pressed against his. He willed his heart to stop its erratic beating. She huddled in the corner of the carriage. He crossed his arms over his chest, suppressing the desire to open his arms to her, to comfort and soothe her. He wanted to get home to his father and be reinstated as heir. He wanted the castle. Did he want Mrs. Allen, too?

Against every impulse, he did not embrace Mary Allen, but committed to stay with her until all the wrongs Savage had inflicted were righted as far as possible.

The best way to countermine the stratagems of men is for women to be suspiciously vigilant even of the first approaches. The general who defends a fort must not abandon the outerworks. She who will secure her chastity must never let it come to close a siege but repel the very first and most remote insinuations of a tempter.

The Whole Duty of a Woman, An Infallible Guide to the Fairer Sex, 1737