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on Miss Montrose. She’s a far better fish than her cousin.”
Fanny looked admiringly at him. “What a betting man you are, George. I didn’t know you knew anything about her cousin. Or perhaps yours is in fact a true love match?” She put her hand to her heart and her expression softened, before her eyes gleamed with mocking humour. “I’m curious, though, as to whether you’d still be prepared to go ahead with the marriage if Miss Montrose doesn’t inherit her aunt’s fabulous fortune?”
“We would contest the will. I didn’t offer for her without consulting a lawyer, who said I’d have a good claim. Or rather, Miss Montrose would. She’s lucky to have me to look out for her interests.”
“Lucky, indeed,” Fanny murmured, again leaning over the battlements.
“Yes, indeed,” corroborated Rufus, leaning over the battlements also, and appearing to lose interest in what George was saying.
A flare of anger skittered through George at the boredom in Rufus’s voice. He hated the way people dismissed him. Well, Miss Montrose—Eliza—never would. To reclaim their attention, he said, “She is beautiful, and kind, and that is enough for me. Have you noticed how she achieves stillness like an art form?”
They both looked at him in some surprise. Yes, they were well-crafted words, George decided, and they were true. The latter part, anyway. He pointed at the tiny figure that was Miss Montrose, still reclining in her chair exactly as they’d left her. Indeed, she could have been a statue, for Antoinette had left her side and was returning to the house, already some distance up the sweeping slope that greened the hill between the manor and the lake.
In front of Miss Montrose was the broad expanse of water, a small island in the middle, two rowing boats bobbing in between. Fanny and Antoinette’s children—Young George and Katherine—were in one, pulling at the oars with the straight-backed figure of Nanny Brown at the helm. In the other, sat the nursemaid who was being rowed by the urchin from the foundling home who often visited his uncle’s estate.
“I hope Eliza hasn’t bored them,” George muttered, not sure at this stage whether it would add more to his consequence to build up the supposed assets of his bride-to-be, or to highlight her deficiencies.
“It’s true; she doesn’t say much,’ Fanny conceded. ‘Still, she is very lovely to look at, and I’m sure you’ll make it your life’s mission to bring a smile to her countenance, George.” She shaded her eyes. “Poor Nanny Brown. Do you think I should go down now and rescue her? She does hate the water, and Katherine does love to torment her.”
Rufus grinned as he pointed. “She’s doing it now. Look, there’s a veritable water fight going on. I meant to ask earlier, who is that fair-haired lad in the other boat. Oh look, your Katherine is trying to climb over to join him.”
“I do wish she wouldn’t,” Fanny murmured anxiously. “She’s utterly besotted by him. That’s Jack from the foundling home. He comes three days a week to play with Young George, who was becoming so sulky and difficult without a playmate to keep him in check. Lately, however, Katherine seems to want exclusive rights to his company and Young George is forever in tears since he wants exclusive rights to Katherine, it would seem.” She sighed. “Still, having a foundling lad was a good idea for young Albert, Grayling’s son.”
“Good Lord, do you mean that gypsy boy who left with the Graylings was young Albert Grayling’s companion? And the two boys are from the foundling home? I thought that gypsy lad was the bootboy.” Rufus looked surprised, though not scandalised as George was by the liberal goings-on in his uncle’s home.
Unexpectedly, Fanny flashed a smile at George, and his heart ratcheted up a notch before he cursed himself. She’d done it on purpose, he was sure. Yes, she’d deliberately brought into the conversation mention of her cousin, Miss Thea Brightwell—now married and the mother of the aforementioned young Albert Grayling—reminding George that his attempts to blight the marital aspirations of another unworthy Brightwell had been inferior to Fanny and Antoinette’s efforts to effect for their Cousin Thea a fine matchmaking outcome.
Fanny brushed her hand lightly across the back of Rufus’s where it rested on the battlement, and George felt a surge of jealous rage. It only intensified as he registered the flare of unmistakeable interest in Rufus’s eyes before she said, “I must tell you the story of how Jack comes to be spending three days a week at Quamby House, Mr Patmore. It’s most diverting. Would you care to hear it?”
“Indeed, I would.”
Fanny then launched into a tale of the afternoon Fanny’s cousin, the penniless Miss Thea Brightwell as she was then, had been travelling in her carriage when her coachman had knocked over a young woman running across the road. In her arms was a bundle, a young boy of about three months with, Thea noticed, a tiny sixth finger on his left hand.
“Anyway,” Fanny went on, “after Grayling and Thea’s darling Albert was five, they decided he needed a playmate, and it would be a fine thing to choose one from the foundling home en route for a five-day visit to Quamby House. Well, when she was there, Thea discovered Jack, whom she knew must be the infant her coachman nearly killed, because of his sixth finger. His mother had obviously been trying to put her unwanted child into the basket near the gates of the home when she’d been knocked over.”
“What a coincidence,” Rufus remarked, clearly invested in the story.
“Indeed it was! Cousin Thea is so softhearted, she couldn’t bear to leave Jack behind. Nor could she resist taking another child, the big, strong gypsy boy whom she thought would be the ideal playmate for Young George, since Antoinette was forever wailing that he needed putting in his place if he weren’t to grow up a puling, whining creature.”
George turned his head away from the quick look Fanny darted at him, and pretended he wasn’t listening as she went on.
“Unfortunately, the gypsy lad, Rafe, was forever getting into scraps with Young George, while Jack was the consummate diplomat. Rafe and Albert seemed to like playing together and are today as thick as thieves. Meanwhile, Fenton and I decided that after five days of peace and calm and no fights between Katherine and Young George, we should have Jack here on a regular basis.”
“And Lord Quamby allows this?”
“He agrees to anything if it’ll make Antoinette happy and his life easier.”
George had to bite his tongue as he knew any interjection would only further encourage Fanny, who went on, “It’s not as if these orphans are being brought up to expect the privileges of their playmates. The foundling home boys come only three days every week. They share Katherine and George’s lessons so that, with a little rudimentary education, they will not disgrace their noble playmates. It’s all rather a novelty, really. My Katherine, and Antoinette’s George are brought up to understand that they are superior, but that they’re not to take advantage. Thea and Grayling live some distance away, but they have a similar arrangement.”
Rufus laughed. “How novel and modern. I must say, I did think Young George rather an unprepossessing ninnyhammer compared to your spirited Katherine, and Grayling’s bold young Albert, not to mention Jack, who seemed a lively, intelligent lad.”
George pushed his shoulders back and his chin forward. Cousin Fanny was secretly taunting him, while encouraging Rufus to deride the boy. Well! His detractors would be singing a different story when Devil’s Run made him a fortune, and became the lauded champion of the East Anglia Cup, in less than two weeks’ time.
He cleared his throat. “If Young George is to be criticised, then might I say that I think your Katherine could do with a little less spirit.” Young Katherine was far too much like her mother and in decided need of a set-down, he thought. “Most gentlemen like their wives pliant. I certainly do, which is one of the reasons I’m happy to wed Miss Montrose.”
Fanny raised an eyebrow and offered him a smile he did not like. However, she was prevented from saying more by a piercing scream from the direction of the lake, which had them all jerking their heads around, and shading their eyes to see if the children’s high jinks had progressed to downright naughtiness that Nanny Brown was unable to suppress.
It was far worse than that.
