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Chapter 3
Ewan hadn’t allowed another answer. “Come. Greet my cousin. She’ll have travelled all the way from Austria, and if I’m right about anything at all—I feel certain that she’ll be fatigued of my mother by the time we arrive at the estate. Throughout tea and dinner, we’ll require your assistance, so that she doesn’t grow immediately anxious about the idea of many months here in England and escape for the coach at once.”
Baldwin Terrence, who, admittedly, hadn’t had a lick of fun throughout most of the winter and spring, had been hesitant. After all, he’d met Marta Schnitzler before, many years ago, when she’d last come for a visit from Austria. At the time, she’d been nothing more than a twelve-year-old girl with a very strange accent when she spoke English. According to her, at the time, she hadn’t yet wrapped her head around how to speak precisely like Englishmen and Englishwomen. A slight twinge of her German language poked itself through her syllables. It had been clear at the time that this had bothered her mother, who’d hired a dictation teacher throughout her stay in England.
Baldwin wasn’t sure why he remembered this fact. When he met the Austrian-English girl, she was bright-eyed and blonde and volatile and alive, but she was also twelve years old. She’d struggled to keep up with him and Ewan, demanding of her Aunt Margaret to allow her to remain in the woods with them. At this, Aunt Margaret had dismissed her as a sort of ragamuffin child.
“She’s much older now,” Ewan had told him, amid this attempt to persuade him over to his estate for dinner. “Aren’t you curious how different she’ll be? All those years away from England, with only the flicker of English knowledge from her uptight mother. It’s up to us to show her what England really is about. We have to protect her, also, from my wretched mother. She wants nothing more than to link Marta up with some Englishman with a proper title.”
Baldwin admitted to himself that he hadn’t other plans and might as well attend this dinner function—out of curiosity alone. The heir of a ducal estate, he was six feet three inches tall, broad of shoulder and muscular from his long rides on horseback and his hunting sessions. He was occasionally stoic, eternally honourable, according to many, and had long black curls that swarmed around his ears and grew tousled when he rode too quickly. He’d frequently heard himself described as, “Incredibly handsome, but altogether too serious.” “Has the man ever laughed at anything?”
In truth, Baldwin had a great deal on his shoulders. Throughout the previous years, his father had grown quite ill, which had required Baldwin to take over many of his duties. Ewan normally said that this made Baldwin respectable, far more than many other men of their age.
But Baldwin couldn’t comprehend a world in which this sort of behavior would attract an ideal mate.
Not that he considered that frequently. He hadn’t much time or energy for the act of courting. At twenty-five, he further didn’t yearn for that sort of frivolous activity. Not any longer.
When he reached the Thompson Estate, he slipped off horseback and led the horse to the stablehand. He turned towards the mansion itself and let out a long sigh. The stablehand hurried back out from the stables and said, “I brought in her bags, My Lord.”
Baldwin gave him an incredulous look. “To whom do you refer?”
The stablehand took a few delicate steps towards the mansion. “You must know. They’ve a new guest. The woman from Austria.”
“Ah, but she’s just a girl,” Baldwin said. He let out a soft laugh and ruffled his black curls.
“She seems to be really something, My Lord,” the stablehand said. “And her maid, she doesn’t speak a single word of English! I don’t suppose I’ve ever met anyone from a different country before.”
Baldwin kept up his incredulous expression. “I imagine they’re quite tired,” he said, genuinely unclear on why the stable hand had decided to lend his opinion of the guests to Baldwin himself.
When he reached the front door, the butler opened it, bowed, and sent him on his way down the familiar shadowy hallway, past the study and the dining room and the perpendicular hall, which led east towards the ballroom. Baldwin couldn’t remember a time in his life when he didn’t know the ins and outs of the Thompson Estate. At one point, Ewan’s mother and his had been the closest of friends. This had led to countless garden rituals, two little boys playing near the flowers as the women gossiped and spoke about their husbands. As the boys had grown older, their mothers had slowly separated. Baldwin’s mother had had another child, a little girl, and Aunt Margaret had felt the weight of two vibrant Thompsons, her eldest daughter, and her younger son. Beyond that, Baldwin had always suspected that the two women simply didn’t have much in common and had slowly inched themselves apart.
The boys had remained lifelong friends, of course. Ewan was the closest thing Baldwin had to a brother. He’d spent countless sun-drenched afternoons at the estate, riding off into the distance with Ewan on the horse just behind.
Baldwin surged through the back garden gate just as the small group broke into fits of giggles. All of them turned towards the brunette girl, sharp-nosed and round-cheeked and beautiful, who now cast her eyes to the ground and seemed genuinely displeased with herself.
“Darling, that’s not how you say it,” Aunt Margaret said. She seized again with laughter.
The woman beside the embarrassed brunette leaned towardsher and whispered something in her ear, something Baldwin couldn’t comprehend. He forced his eyebrows low and listened to the strange syllables bumping through a bizarre rhythm. When she finished, the other woman turned and generated a false, yet still beautiful smile.
“Aunt Margaret, please remember. She’s only just learned bits and pieces of English over the previous few days of travel. Let’s be patient with her, shall we? I imagine she’ll get the hang of things as she remains on with you.”
So this. This was the famous Marta Schnitzler.
Beauty was the first word that came to mind, but it didn’t cover everything. Nay, it seemed to encapsulate just a smudge of her glittering blue eyes, her beautiful porcelain cheeks, her long arms and legs, her thin waist. She spoke sweetly towards her Aunt Margaret, but she did it with an air of danger: as though if Aunt Margaret stepped in the wrong direction once more, she might utilize far different words to explain how she really felt.
Baldwin now understood why the stablehand felt he needed to step out from the shadows and explain about the newcomer to the mansion.
This was certainly something else.
“Very well, dear,” Aunt Margaret said. Her words were flippant, a tone Baldwin was quite familiar with. She swung around suddenly, her eyes enormous, and spread her arm towards him. “I see our dear friend Baldwin has arrived! Handsome Baldwin, won’t you sit with us? I believe dinner will soon be served. I hope you’re hungry.”
“Famished, Aunt Margaret,” Baldwin said. Margaret wasn’t truly his aunt, but she was the closest thing he had to such a relation as his parents no longer had siblings. He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. For all her bad behaviour, he truly did love her. He had to. Too much of his life had been spent there at the Thompson Estate.
“Very good, Baldwin. I know you’ve met my favourite niece in the world before, but that was quite some time ago. I can hardly remember exactly…” She furrowed her brow and made that little flap beneath her chin shake.
“She was twelve, Mother,” Ewan interrupted.
“Is that right?” Aunt Margaret demanded. She cast her eyes towards Marta. “You must not remember anything about England! Darling, this is Baldwin. Baldwin Terrence.”
