“No,” Belinda stated. “No London ladies. Now that you understand our position, you must see that we can’t allow you to simply swan off and search by yourself in London.”
“If you do,” Annabel prophesied, “you’ll be caught.”
“Some London harpy will get her claws into you, and we won’t be there to drive her off.”
That last came from Jane. Gervase looked into her eyes, hoping to see that she was joking, or to at least detect some comprehension that she was over extrapolating, some indication that she understood that he had no need of their protection, especially in such an arena. Instead, all he saw was that same dogged, unbending purpose. One glance at the other two confirmed that they, too, saw her words as a simple statement of fact.
He stared at them, feeling like he’d strayed into a reality he no longer recognized. He really couldn’t believe he was having this discussion. One part of his mind was convinced he must be dreaming. “But”—he seemed to have no alternative but to ask the obvious—“if I can’t go to London and find a bride there, where do you imagine I’ll find a suitable lady to be my countess?”
That earned him a three-pronged look that suggested he was being deliberately obtuse.
“You need to look around here, of course,” Belinda informed him.
“In the neighborhood and nearby towns,” Annabel clarified.
“So you can bring her home and show her the castle, and us,” Jane added. “Before you marry her.”
He suddenly understood—or rather, his brain finally accepted what his intellect had deduced. “You want to vet my choice?”
All three blinked at him; Sybil did, too.
“Well, of course!” Belinda said.
His expression set like stone. “No.”
That should have been the end of it. He should have said not one more word and stalked from the room. Should have realized from what had already passed that in the last ten years his sisters had grown even more like him—until he was no match for the three of them together.
They could talk rings around a philosophy professor.
The one peculiar talent he’d brought to his decade and more as a covert agent operating primarily on foreign soil, slipping in and out of the ports of France during the final years of the wars, was his ability to persuade. It wasn’t charm; it owed nothing to a smile or a glib tongue. It was more a matter of being able to twist arguments, of having the sort of mind that could see possibilities and frame connections in such a way that they seemed plausible, causal and direct. Even when they were in no way linked.
He was an expert in persuasion, in the art of framing the reasonable suggestion.
Yet every point he made, his sisters attacked. From three sides. At once. He knew where he stood, knew the rational ground beneath his feet was solid, yet no matter how hard he fought, he couldn’t seem to defend his position.
He was driven back, step by step. Onto a slippery slope that he suddenly realized led straight to abject surrender.
“Enough!” Running a hand through his hair, only just suppressing the urge to clutch the close curls, he ignored their pressing, leading questions designed to send him sliding down that slope and forced them to return to the single central point. “Regardless of anything and everything, as there is no lady anywhere near who might be suitable, I have to go to London to make my choice.”
“No,” Belinda said.
“Not without us,” Annabel belligerently declared.
“If you try to return to London alone,” Jane warned, “you’ll force us to do something terrible to bring you back.”
Gervase looked into all three pairs of eyes, each brimming with a determination equal to his own. They weren’t going to budge.
But this was his life. His wife.
And he was so tired of the mounting frustration of not being able to even start his search for her.
All, it now seemed, because of his sisters.
His temper, already tried beyond bearing, quietly slipped its leash.
“Very well,” he said.
All three girls straightened. They’d never, ever, seen him lose his temper, but knew him well enough to sense the change.
His tone cold, even and uninflected, he stated, “As you’re so convinced a suitable lady exists hereabouts, and that any such local lady will pose no real threat to you, I’ll make a bargain with you. I won’t return to London for the next three months, not until the Little Season commences. And I swear on all that’s holy that, from this moment on, I’ll marry the first suitable lady I meet—suitable on the basis of age, birth and station, temperament, compatibility and beauty. In return, you three will accept that lady without question.” He held their gazes, his own as hard as stone. “And you will not, again, indulge in any behavior designed to influence my decisions, or my life, in any way whatever.”
He paused, then said, “That’s the bargain. Do you accept it?”
They didn’t immediately answer.
All three studied him, then Belinda asked, “What if you don’t meet a suitable lady over the next three months?”
He smiled, a chilly gesture. “Then when the Little Season starts and I return to London, I’ll have to look there.”
They didn’t want to take the risk; the wariness in their eyes said so.
He pressed his advantage. “If you’re so sure that a suitable lady lies waiting in the neighborhood, then you should be prepared to let fate take her course and arrange for her to cross my path. You should be prepared to accept my bargain.”
The three looked at each other, wordlessly communing, then faced him once more. Belinda spoke. “If you promise on your honor to seriously look for, and then actively pursue, any suitable lady, then…” She hesitated, glanced one last time at the others, then looked back at him and nodded. “Yes—we accept your bargain.”
“Good.” He didn’t want to say more, much less hear any further words from them on his inability to choose his own wife. He glanced at Sybil, a silent observer throughout, and curtly nodded. “If you’ll excuse me?”
Another rhetorical question. With a last, raking glance over his sisters’ faces, he turned and strode to the door.
He had to get out—somewhere he could stride so he could let the coiled tension, the inevitable outcome of suppressing his fury, free.
By the time he reached the drawing room door, manifesting temper had infected his movements. Jerking the door open, he swung into the corridor—and nearly ran down Sitwell, his butler.
A paragon of his calling, Sitwell stepped back quickly to avoid a collision. Gervase inwardly sighed. Closing the door, he arched a brow in query.
“Miss Gascoigne has arrived and is asking to see you, my lord.”
The Honorable Miss Madeline Gascoigne. He was going to have to swallow his ire. “Where is she?”
“In the front hall, my lord. She intimated the matter wouldn’t take long and she did not wish to disturb Lady Sybil.”
Thanking Heaven for small mercies, Gervase nodded. “I’ll go to her.”
He strode down the corridor, leaving Sitwell in his wake.
His bargain with his sisters didn’t worry him; he knew beyond doubt that there simply wasn’t any suitable lady anywhere in the vicinity. He’d looked about the locality first before accepting the need to look in London. The notion that he’d choose to run the gauntlet of the London marriage mart was absurd; London was simply his only field of choice.
Which meant that for him finding a wife was postponed until the ton returned to the capital in late September. Given he’d had no intention of putting himself through the excruciating ordeal of countless house parties—the summer hunting grounds of the matchmaking mamas—that would have been the case regardless.
So his bargain with his sisters had cost him nothing he hadn’t already surrendered, namely the next three months. The point that seriously exercised his temper was that he’d had to make such a bargain at all.
Indeed, the entire subject of his w
ife—or more specifically his lack of same—had become a sore point, a mental bruise that throbbed every time he thought of it. Let alone spoke of it.
Turning a corner, he looked ahead, and saw a tall figure waiting by the round table in the center of the castle’s great front hall. He inwardly grimaced. No doubt Madeline had come to ask about the mill.
The daughter of the previous Viscount Gascoigne, only child of his first marriage, she was the older halfsister of the current viscount, Harold, known to all as Harry, still very much a minor at fifteen. The Gascoignes held the estate of Treleaver Park, situated above Black Head, the eastern headland of the same wide bay on which the castle stood overlooking the western cove. Gascoignes had been at the Park for very nearly as long as Tregarths had been at the castle.
The two families were the principal landowners in the area. As, under the terms of her late father’s will, Madeline was the primary guardian of her three brothers, including Harry, it was she who was the de facto Gascoigne. She ran the estate and made all necessary decisions. As she’d been groomed by her father for that duty, and had performed in the role since before his lingering death eight years ago, the neighborhood had long grown accustomed to treating her as her brother’s surrogate.
Indeed, for the exemplary way she conducted her brother’s business and for her devotion to the difficult role of her brothers’ keeper, she had earned the respect of every person on the peninsula, and far beyond.
Gervase approached; hearing his bootsteps, Madeline turned, an easy smile lighting her face. Courtesy of his years abroad, he didn’t know her well, but as he’d been born at Tregarth Manor outside Falmouth, not that far away, and had spent many months throughout his childhood visiting his uncle and cousins at the castle, he’d known of her existence for most of her life.
Since his unexpected ascension to the earldom three years ago, and even more since he’d sold out the previous year and personally taken up the reins of the estate, he’d dealt with Madeline frequently, although busy as they both were, they most often communicated by letter.
She was considerably taller than the average, only a few inches shorter than Gervase. As usual when riding about the county, she was gowned in dark colors; today’s gown was a sensible rich brown. A wide-brimmed hat dangled from one hand, worn to protect her fair skin from the sun, but even more to help confine the mass of her hair. Fine and plentiful, no matter how tightly she restrained it in a knot on the top of her head, strands escaped, forming a halo of spun copper filaments about her face, rather like a Russian madonna. Her hair, however, was the only element of her appearance beyond her control; all the rest was deliberately and severely restrained, strictly business.
As Gervase neared, she held out a gloved hand.
He grasped it, shook it. “Madeline.”
Retrieving her hand, she returned his easy nod. “Gervase.” Her expression turned rueful. “Before you say anything, I’m here to beg your pardon.”
He blinked, frowned. “I thought you’d come about the mill.”
Her smile widened. “No, although I did hear of your problem. It seems quite bizarre that your sisters were involved. Have you discovered why they did it? Or, as is the case with my brothers, was it simply a matter of ‘it seemed a good idea at the time’?”
He managed a rueful smile. “Something like that. But what’s your apology for?”
“In light of the mill, you’ll understand. I’m afraid my hellborn three’s latest interesting idea was to put your bull in among your dairy herd. Don’t, pray, ask me why—their logic escapes me. I’ve already had them out to see your herdsman to apologize, and I supervised them in recapturing the bull and putting him back in his field. He didn’t seem any the worse for his adventure, although I’m afraid your milk production might suffer a trifle due to the excitement.”
She paused, a frown in her gray-green eyes. “I should, I suppose, have expected something. They’re home for the summer, of course, but I had hoped they would have outgrown such schoolboy exploits.”
Gervase raised his brows, falling into step beside her as she walked slowly back to the front door. “Harry’s fifteen, isn’t he? He’ll stop his schoolboy tricks soon enough, but when he does, you might well wish he hadn’t. In this season a slight disruption to our milk production won’t even be noticed, and if that’s the worst he and your other two get up to this year, we’ll all think ourselves lucky.”
“Hmm…be careful what you wish for?” Madeline wrinkled her straight, no-nonsense nose. “In that you might be right.”
They paused in the shadow of the front porch. She glanced at him. “When do you expect the mill to be fixed?”
They chatted for several minutes, about the mill and the coming harvest, about the local tin mining in which both estates had an interest, about the latest local business news. Like all the neighborhood gentlemen, Gervase had learned to respect and rely on Madeline’s views, drawn as they were from a much wider pool of information than any of them could tap.
There wasn’t a local merchant, miner, laborer or farmer who wouldn’t readily talk to Miss Gascoigne about his enterprise. Likewise his wife. Madeline had a much deeper understanding of anything and everything that went on on the Lizard Peninsula and in surrounding districts, one no mere man could hope to match.
She glanced up at the sun. “I really must be going.” She met his eyes. “Thank you for understanding about the bull.”
“If it helps, you can tell your brothers that I was not amused. I’ll be going out to the mill shortly.”
With a smile, she held out her hand. Gervase shook it, then went with her down the steps to the forecourt, where her horse, a tall, powerful chestnut few other women could hope to control, waited, alert and ready to run.
Lifting her hat, she settled it on her head, then reached for the front of her saddle. Gervase held the horse’s bridle, watching without a blink as Madeline planted her boot in the stirrup and swung up to the horse’s broad back.
She always rode astride, wearing trousers beneath her skirts for the purpose. Given the miles she covered every day watching over her brother’s interests, not even the most censorious dowager considered the fact worth mentioning.
Madeline lifted her reins. With a smile and a brisk salute, she backed the chestnut, then wheeled and trotted neatly out of the walled forecourt.
Gervase watched her go, idly aware that her peers in the district were the other male landowners; in their councils, she was never treated as a female—as someone of different status from the men. While no one would actually treat her as a man—thump her on the back or offer her brandy—she occupied a unique position.
Because, in many ways, she was unique.
Thinking of his sisters, Gervase considered that a little of Madeline’s uniqueness could, with benefit, rub off on them. Turning back to the castle, he remounted the front steps. And turned his mind back to his temper…only to discover that it was no longer straining at the leash.
He no longer had anything to suppress. He felt calm, in control once more, confident and able to deal with whatever might come his way.
His conversation with Madeline—sane, sensible and rational—had regrounded him. Why couldn’t his sisters be more like her?
Or was that one of those things he should be wary of wishing for?
He was still pondering that point when he reached the drawing room. Opening the door, he walked in.
Belinda, Annabel and Jane turned from the window overlooking the forecourt, through which they’d obviously been observing him and Madeline. Sybil, swiveled on the chaise, had been watching her daughters, no doubt listening to their report.
Before he could frown at them, all four looked at him, their expressions identical, eager and expectant.
He stared at them. “What?”
As one, they stared back.
“We thought perhaps you might invite her in,” Belinda said.
“Madeline? Why?”
The look they bent on him s
uggested they were wondering where he’d left his wits.
When he didn’t spontaneously find them, Belinda deigned to help. “Madeline. Isn’t she a suitable lady?”
He stared at them, and couldn’t think of an answer. Not any answer he wanted to give. Oaths, he suspected, wouldn’t shock them.
He let his face harden, let his most impenetrable mask settle into place. “I have to go and unjam the mill. I’ll speak with you later.”
Without another word, he swung around and stalked out.
That evening, Gervase entered his library-cum-study and headed directly for the tantalus. As he poured himself a brandy, the latter events of the day scrolled through his mind.
Reaching the mill, he’d discovered the frustrated miller about to commence the laborious task of dismantling the grinding mechanism to see why “the damned thing won’t budge.” Asking him to wait, Gervase had gone outside to where the huge waterwheel sat unmoving in the narrow stream. His sisters knew nothing about gears and axles; there was no evidence they’d even entered the mill. Whatever they’d done to cripple the mechanism had been simple and ingenious—and something three schoolgirls, two of decent height and strength, could physically achieve.
The stream had been bubbling and gurgling along, covering the lower third of the wheel. After squinting into the rippling water, Gervase had called the miller and his sons to lend a hand; they’d managed to turn the wheel—enough to expose the gaps where three paddle blades ought to have been, and the anchor, doubtless purloined from the castle boathouse, that had held the wheel so that the jostling of the stream hadn’t shifted it. With the three blades missing, the water rushed freely through the gap, providing no force to turn the big wheel.
John Miller had stared at the gaps, at the anchor, and had sworn.
They’d found the blades, which for ease of replacement simply slotted into grooves in the wheel’s inner sides, tucked out of sight among some bushes. A matter of minutes had seen the anchor removed and the blades replaced—and the millstone grinding once more.
His sisters’ latest misdeed righted, he’d returned to the castle and had closeted himself in the library until dinnertime.