Page 42 of No Ordinary Lady

“Gracious, no. He’s marrying for convenience and to please his poor mother. My grandson has always been a bit of a rogue, takes after my side of the family, I’m proud to say. His mother, however, has painted him a gentleman as refined as his father was to our nearest neighbors. Proper, studious, and kindhearted.”

“He is kindhearted,” Marian protested.

“With an eye for the scandalous ladies, too, don’t forget,” she murmured. “His father was cut from a vastly different cloth, but the boy lost him when he was young. He fell in with the wrong crowd at first in London, of course, and by then his taste was set. His current circle of acquaintances is better mannered than the former, and far more important. Distinguished rogues, every last one. Though Danny has never harbored grand ambition or fame, much to his mother’s disappointment.”

“I see,” Marian said slowly. “That still doesn’t explain why you want me to stay so badly.”

The old lady smiled. “You’re here to prove my theory that a rogue’s taste in women never really changes. Especially not on the cusp of making a proper match. If you stay, you’ll be amply compensated.”

Marian met the old woman’s gaze directly. “And if I don’t?”

“Then I’m afraid you will make the acquaintance of the local magistrate and explain how you came to have my promise ring in your possession,” Granny said with a deadly smile. “I know what you’re really doing here, Miss Trill. You’re the honey before the sting to come. I will not allow you to rob my grandson when your family finally catch up with you.”

“No one is coming to rob you,” Marian swore, but then gulped. “If they come at all, it will be to punish me for betraying them by protecting Danny from their ambush.”

“Ah—at last, a grain of truth,” Granny said, almost purring with satisfaction. “It’s just as I thought. You do fancy him.”

Marian laughed softly. “Well, do you blame me? He is very handsome.”

“Not at all, my dear, I’ve always hoped he’d find someone just like you. Someone who saw the good in him and appreciated the wicked, too. That is not Amy Wilson, I assure you.”

“It could be,” Marian suggested, but deep down, she hoped that was not the case. Danny deserved so much more than either of them could give him.

Chapter Ten

It was always a difficult day when Mother and Granny sat out in the garden together. Granny liked to sip champagne under the sun and Mother always disapproved of that sort of thing. Add in a neighbor mother wanted to impress, and an almost lover he was trying not to notice, and that meant Daniel couldn’t relax.

He was constantly dreading someone’s slip of the tongue while he was trying to get to know Amy again.

Granny’s bawdy laughter and Marian’s softer chuckles kept drawing his attention away from his important conversation with Amy Wilson.

The flowing champagne had loosened Granny’s tongue a great deal today. She was gregarious, loud, and teasing of all and sundry, even the servants who were waiting on her. Her ribald conversation was embarrassing mother, but not Marian.

“When I was a young woman, there were gentlemen lined up to dance with me every night,” Granny whispered to Marian. “I could have had my pick, but I chose my Edmund. He was the most handsome fellow, the most prone to laughter. I tell you it’s better to laugh together than never at all.”

Granny and Edmund Noble had met at seventeen at the theater and fallen madly and instantly in love. However, Edmund had been impressed to join the navy shortly after he’d proposed and never returned to marry her. He was taken by the tides of war at sea too soon, leaving Granny utterly heartbroken. It was only later, when her delicate condition was impossible to deny, that she found out he’d come from one of the richest families in the next county.

Granny had been given enough hush money by his family to make the scandal of their bastard child go away, but she had already taken his family name to lend respectability to her young daughter’s existence.

Those early days she spoke of so fondly were a somewhat delicate subject in front of Mama and others. Granny had trod the boards as an actress in her youth at a rather scandalous dockside theater, to support herself and her child. She’d been quite famous at one time and had had her share of wealthy protectors in the early years. Not exactly the past that Mother, now a respectable countess, ever wanted others to be reminded of.

“Have you met my horse?” he said to Amy to turn her attention from Granny. “I got lucky when I went to Tattersalls last year. Outbid even the Marquess of Wharton for the animal.”

“He’s an important man, isn’t he? The marquess is often mentioned in the papers.”

“Indeed, yes he is,” he said, pleased she was keeping abreast of the current news of high society. “I am fortunate to call him a good friend, and his wife, too.”

“Wasn’t she the one who engaged in trade?” Granny called out loudly. “I’m keen to meet a woman like that, a no-nonsense kind of gel, and her cousins, too. Remarkable that they all married so well.”

“Their business was to offer elocution lessons to gentlemen,” he assured Amy when she frowned. “Dancing practice and improving conversational skills.”

Granny arched her brow. “So, what did you go there for, young man? You dance very well and no one of any sense could find fault with your conversation.”

Daniel clenched his jaw. She knew full well that his visit to the Hillcrest Academy had been a ruse to speak with a pretty girl, because he’d told her so, to make her laugh. Of course, that pretty girl could be married by now, or maybe not, to Lord Sullivan, a new friend of his. “My stutter returned.”

Granny gave him a long, disbelieving look. “You haven’t stuttered in years around a pretty girl.”

Well, she knew he had stuttered recently, because she’d heard him lose his words recently, and in front of Marian no less. “I suspect I was overly tired and, after realizing that, it went away of its own accord,” he promised.