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As Lady Fairweather, a tall, raw-boned woman with a head of graying brassy-brown curls and features that might generously be described as horse-faced, pushed through the crowd to join them, her gaze remained fixed on Frederick. Only at the last minute, as she halted before them, did her ladyship shift her shrewd hazel gaze to Stacie. “So you’re the lady who finally managed to make him see sense, heh? I’ve been telling him for years that he needs a wife to help him properly oversee the Hall—men always seem to think that paying the bills and making sure the place doesn’t fall down is enough, but you look like the sort who knows her way around a household. Are the Hugheses treating you well?”
Stacie smiled. “Exceedingly well, thank you. They are, metaphorically speaking, my left and right hand.”
“Just so.” Lady Fairweather nodded decisively. “Knew just from looking at you that you had a good head on your shoulders.”
Frederick smoothly cut in, “My dear, allow me to present Letitia, Lady Fairweather, of Cannon Grange, and her daughter, Emily.”
Stacie extended her hand. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Fairweather.”
Her ladyship engulfed Stacie’s hand in her much larger one and shot a disapproving look at Frederick. “No need to stand on ceremony—everyone calls me Letty.”
Stacie’s smiled broadened, and she retrieved her hand. “And I’m Eustacia, but do call me Stacie.” She turned to the young lady, very much cast into her robust mother’s shadow, and offered her hand. “And Emily—how do you do?”
Emily touched fingers and bobbed a curtsy. “It’s lovely to meet you, ma’am.”
Stacie glanced at Lady Fairweather, then asked Emily, “Are you out yet?”
Emily smiled resignedly. “Next year. Mama thought I should wait until I’m nineteen.”
“Time to learn a bit more sense, and that will make you stand out from the herd,” Letty said.
Stacie arched her brows. “That’s…rather a wise notion. Many young ladies are—well, very young and quite silly, which does tend to put the gentlemen off.”
“See?” Letty glanced at her daughter. “I told you an extra year won’t hurt.”
“Indeed.” Stacie turned to Letty. “I’m thinking of hosting a dinner party in the next month or so, to introduce myself to the local families, as it were. I do hope you’ll consent to Emily attending, too.”
Frederick noted the blush and the air of hope that infused Emily’s features.
With her sharp eyes, Letty saw it, too. After a second of meeting her daughter’s patently pleading gaze, she humphed. “Don’t see why not. An invitation to dine at a marchioness’s table isn’t, I believe, something one needs to be formally presented to accept.”
“Exactly.” Stacie smiled encouragingly at Emily. “And it will stand you in good stead for attending similar dinners in London next Season.”
Letty and Frederick fell into a discussion about a local weir, leaving Stacie and Emily happily discussing the latest fashions.
When, eventually, they parted from the eccentric Lady Fairweather and her rather more conservative daughter, Emily was a good deal happier than when the pair had approached.
Once Frederick and Stacie had moved on into the crowd, he dipped his head and murmured, “Since when have you been considering hosting a dinner?”
Stacie shot him a grin. “Since about ten minutes ago.” She settled her arm more comfortably in his. “Yes, I dreamed it up to give Emily something to look forward to, but hosting such a dinner is, in fact, something I ought—we ought—to do.”
“If you say so.” Although his resigned tone gave no indication of it, Frederick was pleased that she’d reached the stage of claiming the position of his marchioness in a wider, county-circle setting.
Then he noticed another couple approaching and said, “Actually, in terms of the guests we should invite to such an event, Sir Hugh McNab and his lady—the magistrate and his wife—should definitely be on our list.”
They halted as the McNabs came up with them. Ignoring the stream of marketgoers swerving around them, Frederick made the introductions and watched as Stacie charmed the magistrate and his wife. Amongst her other comments, Stacie made mention of her intention to host a dinner party “perhaps in early summer,” and when the couples parted, Lady McNab was all a-flutter.
As they walked on, Frederick observed, “Mama wasn’t one for entertaining the locals—London was always her true home. She held house parties at the Hall, but her guests were her and my father’s London friends.”
After a moment, Stacie said, “If I had to choose, I would opt for life in the country. Living in the country and visiting town to attend performances, catch up with family, and grace the occasional social event”—she cast a glance up at his face—“that, to me, would be my ideal.”
He nodded. “Add in visits to scholarly lectures and events, and that’s my ideal as well.”
He didn’t bother stating how perfectly they were matched; that was obvious. As he continued to walk beside her, protectively steering her through the crowd, pointing out this and that and being a
mused by the sights that tickled her fancy, he felt contentment settle just a little deeper into his bones.
He couldn’t imagine a life more pleasant than this.
