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“But everyone wants to meet the great hero,” Lieutenant Jeremy Musgrave had entreated during one particularly loathsome London event when Daniel had protested and made his feelings known. “The young ladies are all agog with excitement. You need only throw the handkerchief and take your pick.”
“What a coxcomb such a picture suggests.”
“I did not mean you were, only that you could.”
“I could be a coxcomb? Why, thank you. I think.”
Musgrave chuckled. “Always so quick to take a miff, aren’t you? That must be how you have got on so well these past years.”
“A secret I am loath to share.”
His subordinate grinned. “But in all seriousness, may I ask how long you plan to remain in London? I know you can hardly bear to tear yourself away from such joys as these festivities, as well as the young ladies wishing to know the famous captain and perhaps be considered Mrs. Balfour.”
Daniel cut him a look.
Musgrave’s amusement sounded again. “But I should very much like to show you off to my family back in Leicestershire. And come to think of it, I do have a younger sister who is dying to meet you.”
“While I appreciate your interest in my matrimonial prospects, I assure you I have no immediate plans to embark on such a pleasant task. I have family matters to attend to in Northumberland.”
“That great distance?”
“That great distance.” He’d written at first to say his man of business would attend but, after sending the missive, had realized the callousness of such an action, and thus he’d determined to visit, a decision affirmed when he’d received the legal summons to speak on James Langley’s behalf in Northumberland. Wooler was only a day or so’s carriage drive away from Langley House. He would visit, see his sister and niece, attend to whatever needed doing, and within a week return south to London.
“Better you than me.” The lieutenant’s blue eyes had lit. “Perhaps on your return from your visit to the north, you will find need to stop in and see us at Thorpe Acre. We are not so very far from the North Road.”
“Perhaps I will. But only if you promise not to have your sister thrown at my head.”
Musgrave raised his brows. “Mariah? It isn’t likely. She’s only fourteen after all. You need a wife of greater years and sense than that.”
Daniel acquiesced, but inside his heart protested. He was wedded to the military and had no desire to marry. Felicitations to friends like James Langley and Adam Edgerton, who had found wives and settled down, but such was not for him.
The moor and treeless landscape beyond the window spoke clearly that he wasn’t in the tamed pastoral setting of his youth. The area here possessed a kind of wildness, something remote, something that seemed to call to him, much like Spain and Portugal had done, drawing him into adventure, into territory unexplored.
He was a loner, someone whose quick wits and sense of duty meant a quiet domestic life held no charm. He wanted to be doing, not wooing, and was happy in his life.
Such thoughts proved he did not need a wife at all.
Chapter 2
Theo guided Becky down the aisle to shake the rector’s hand. She complimented Mr. Crouch on his sermon—under half an hour today—and moved outside under heavy grey skies, where the servants of Mannering beckoned them nearer.
Janet Drake, Mannering’s housekeeper-cook, and her groundsman husband, Ian, stood chatting quietly with Annie and Robert Brigham, who held similar roles at Stapleton. Unfortunately, Janet’s propensity for dithering had led to meals served at Mannering House always arriving far later than Francis Mannering had liked, and the sluggish efforts of her husband had led to the near ruin of the house they were paid to care for. Still, stubborn loyalty to the family meant that the Drakes knew how to hold their tongue, a quality many could learn from.
“Oh, Miss Becky, Miss Stapleton,” Janet said in a loud whisper. “Did you hear?”
“Hear what, Janet?” Becky adroitly avoided a large mud puddle as they drew nearer.
“He’s coming!”
“Who is?”
“Why, the captain hisself!”
Becky’s shoulders slumped, her face a mask of disconsolation such that Theo abandoned her code of restraint.
“Forgive me, Janet, but I understood that it was his man of business who would attend. That is what his latest correspondence suggested.”
“Oh! P’raps it is. I do not rightly know.”
