The Earl's Practical Marriage. Louise Allen

turned a family crisis into a full-scale district-wide scandal, ruined her own chances and drove Giles into exile in Portugal, of all things. And, inevitably, into disgrace with his father. ‘I expect Papa told you all about it at the time.’

      ‘Your father sent me an absolute rant of a letter about undutiful daughters, idiot youths and lamentations about the failure of his scheme to join the two estates. I could not make head nor tail of most of it. I was going to invite you to stay with me in town to get away from the fuss and botheration, but then your dear mother died and then my poor Cary and when we were all over the worst of that your father wrote to say he needed you to look after young Jamie... Oh, dear, I knew I should have insisted that you come to me.’

      ‘Jamie did need me. He was so devastated when Mama died—he was only five. And then Papa married again and... It was all rather difficult. Jamie did not take to Stepmama and she found him difficult to accept. I do not think she ever came to terms with him being illegitimate. I could not understand at first, but now I suppose she thought that if Papa could raise his late cousin’s son, then he might have a tolerant attitude towards infidelity, when of course, it was quite the opposite. He and Mama deplored Cousin Isabella’s actions, but they believed an innocent child should not suffer for them.’

      Not many people could, to be fair. It was a good thing Jamie had gone away to sea now he was old enough to be hurt by snubs and chance remarks about his mama, who had run off with her groom and who had died giving birth to their son. ‘It was all too much for a little boy,’ she explained. ‘He needed the stability of someone familiar to care for him. And then with Papa dying a year ago...’

      ‘He needed you for nine years? After a few months you could surely have employed a governess and then some tutors and freed yourself to live your own life. You could have married, dear.’

      ‘Jamie needed me. He was—is—very much attached to me,’ Laurel flared, on the defensive. Was this going to be like living at home all over again? Who would she marry when the whispers all around the area were that years ago Lady Laurel had driven away her suitor—a young man much liked in the district—and that her father had decimated her dowry in fury at having his plans thwarted?

      ‘Oh, bless him. So young to be leaving home to become a midshipman. It must have been a terrible wrench for him, poor little lad.’ Phoebe fumbled for a tiny lace-edged handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.

      ‘Yes. Yes, of course it was.’ The ‘poor little lad’ had scrambled up into the gig, all five foot six of lanky fourteen-year-old, his precious new telescope clutched under his arm. He had immediately begun chattering to Sykes, the groom whose son was a second mate on a cutter, about life at sea and his ambitions and his new ship and how well he had done in his midshipman’s examinations.

      ‘...third in the geometry paper and second in...’ His voice had floated back down the driveway to where his stepmother Dorothy and Laurel, her handkerchief scrunched in her hand and a brave, determined smile on her face so he would not turn around and see her weeping, stood on the steps to wave him goodbye. But Jamie had not turned round, not for a second.

      His letter home, sent from Portsmouth just before he boarded his ship, was blotted, scrawled and bubbling with excitement. He’d met some of the other midshipmen—great guns all—and seen the captain, trailing clouds of glory behind him from his last engagement with the French, and as for the ship, at anchor in the bay, well, the Hecate was the finest thing afloat. It was capital not being tied down with boring lessons any more and having all the other fellows to talk to, Jamie wrote before signing his name. And that was the only reference to her.

      ‘I expect he is homesick and perhaps seasick,’ Laurel said, fixing her smile in place securely. ‘But I am sure he will recover from both soon enough.’

      Stepmama had been right. Jamie had not needed her, had not needed her for years. It was she who had used him as a shield behind which she could do more or less as she pleased, provided that did not involve straying more than five miles from home. And now she was not needed at Malden Grange at all. Her stepmother had the domestic situation firmly under control and did not welcome another woman’s finger in her pies—literally or metaphorically. And she had begun to make snide remarks about Laurel’s allowance now Jamie required fitting out and would doubtless need more financial support as he climbed the ladder of his new career.

      Her second cousin Anthony, now Earl of Palgrave, had been most gracious in allowing them to remain at home and not requiring them to move out to the Dower House immediately. He apparently enjoyed living at the original seat of the earldom, Palgrave Castle, on the other side of the county, but surely he would marry soon and might well want to move his bride into the more modern and convenient Malden Grange that her father had always used.

      ‘I only want to be of use,’ she had said and her stepmother had pointed out tartly that no help was needed and that if she thought she was going to turn into one of those do-gooding spinsters, setting up schools for dirty orphans or homes for fallen women, then she was not doing it at Dorothy’s expense or from under her roof.

      At which point it had occurred to Stepmama that Laurel had a widowed aunt in Bath. Bath was full of old maids, widows and invalids, therefore Aunt Phoebe, who was certainly widowed, was probably also an invalid. Laurel could go and be useful looking after her, she had declared. Lady Cary could well afford a companion, as it was common knowledge that both her father and her husband had left her well provided for.

      ‘And I do not want a husband,’ Laurel added firmly. She was too old and cynical now to be starry-eyed about men and she was approaching the age when no one would expect her to find a spouse. She would be that creature of pity, a failure, an unmarried woman, and she would be happy to be so, she told herself. Her judgement of character had proved disastrously faulty, now she had no wish to risk her heart and her future happiness. She had managed to hide away while she was at the dangerous age when everyone expected her to marry—now, surely, at almost twenty-six she was safe from matchmakers?

      ‘Really, dear? You do not want to marry? But you are so pretty and intelligent and eligible: it is such a waste. I will not despair and I will be very glad to have your company, of course, until some sensible man comes along and snaps you up.’ She leaned forward and patted Laurel’s hand. ‘Your home is here, dear, for as long as you want it.’

      ‘Thank you,’ Laurel said with some feeling. It was reassuring to have someone who wanted her. ‘But I cannot live off your charity, Aunt Phoebe. If you required a companion, then of course, board and lodging in return would be fair, I suppose. But I do have my allowance from Papa’s estate and what Mama left me, so I can pay my way and share expenses.’

      ‘Bless you, child.’ Phoebe waved a beringed hand at the cake stand. ‘And eat, Laurel, you look ready to fade away.’ She cocked her head to one side and Laurel tried to return the beady look calmly. ‘You are too pale and with that dark brown hair and eyes you need more colour in your cheeks. I expect a year in mourning has not helped matters. I have no children,’ she added with an abrupt change of subject. ‘My poor dear Cary always felt that very much, but he never reproached me. You, my dear, are as welcome here as my own daughter would have been.’

      ‘I am? But, Aunt...Phoebe, I do not know what to say. Except, if you are certain, thank you. I hardly know—’ It was impossibly good news. Welcome, a new home where, it seemed, she could be free to be herself. Whoever that was.

      ‘There is no need to thank me,’ Phoebe said with her sweet smile. ‘I am being a perfectly selfish creature about this. I have no expectation of keeping you long, whatever you say—there are too many men in Bath with eyes in their heads and good taste for that!—but I will very much enjoy your company until the right one comes along and finds you.’

      * * *

      ‘Our best suite, my lord.’ The proprietor of the Christopher Hotel bowed Giles Redmond, Earl of Revesby, into a pleasant sitting room overlooking the High Street. A glance to the right through the wide sash windows revealed the Abbey, basking golden in the early evening light. To the left the bustle of the High Street was beginning to calm down.

      ‘Thank you. This will