The Trouble with Virtue. Stephanie Laurens

MY DEAR HUGO, is a decidedly sobering age.”

      “Heh?” Startled from somnolence, Hugo Satterly opened one cautious eye and studied the long-limbed figure gracefully lounging on the opposite carriage seat. “Why’s that?”

      Philip Augustus Marlowe, seventh Baron Ruthven, did not deign to answer—not directly. Instead, his gaze on the summer scenery slipping past the carriage window, he remarked, “I would never have thought to see Jack and Harry Lester competing over who would provide the first of the next generation of Lesters.”

      Hugo straightened. “Tricky prediction, that. Jack suggested laying odds but Lucinda heard of it.” Hugo grimaced. “That was the end of it, of course. Said she wasn’t about to have us all watching her and Sophie, counting the days. Pity.”

      A fleeting smile touched Philip’s lips. “An uncommonly sensible woman, Lucinda.” After a moment he added, more to himself than to his friend, “And Jack was lucky with his Sophie, too.”

      They were returning from a week’s house party at Lester Hall; the festivities had been presided over by Sophie, Mrs Jack Lester, ably seconded by Lucinda, now Harry Lester’s bride. Both recent additions to the Lester family tree were discreetly but definitely enceintes, and radiant with it. The unabashed happiness that had filled the rambling old house had infected everyone.

      But the week had drawn to its inevitable close; Philip was conscious that, despite the calm and orderly ambiance of his ancestral home, there would be no such warmth, no promise for the future, awaiting him there. The idea that he had invited Hugo, a friend of many years, confirmed bachelor and infrequent rake, to join him solely as a distraction, to turn his thoughts from the depressing path he saw opening before him, floated through his mind. He tried to ignore it.

      He shifted in his seat, listening to the regular pounding of his carriage horses’ hooves, firmly fixing his attention on the ripening fields—only to have Hugo ruthlessly haul his problem into the light.

      “Well—I suppose you’ll be next.” Hugo settled his shoulders against the squabs and gazed at the fields with unruffled calm. “Dare say that’s what’s making you glum.”

      Narrowing his eyes, Philip fixed them on Hugo’s innocent visage. “Surrendering to the bonds of matrimony, walking knowingly into parson’s mousetrap, is hardly a pleasant thought.”

      “Don’t think of it at all myself.”

      Philip’s expression turned decidedly sour. A gentleman of independent means and nought but distant family, Hugo had no need to wed. Philip’s case was very different.

      “Don’t see why you need make such a mountain of it, though.” Hugo glanced across the carriage. “Imagine your stepmother’ll be only too happy to line up the young ladies—all you need do is look ’em over and make your selection.”

      “Being no less female than the rest of them, I’m certain Henrietta would be only too glad to assist. However,” Philip continued, his tone tending steely, “should she be mistaken in one of her candidates, ’tis I, not she, who will pay the price. For life. No, I thank you. If mistakes capable of wrecking my life are to be made, I’d rather make them myself.”

      Hugo shrugged. “If that’s the case, you’ll have to make your own list. Go through the debs, check their backgrounds, make sure they can actually speak and not just giggle and that they won’t simper over the breakfast cups.” He wrinkled his nose. “Dull work.”

      “Depressing work.” Philip shifted his gaze once more to the scenery.

      “Pity there aren’t more like Sophie or Lucinda about.”

      “Indeed.” Philip delivered the word tersely; to his relief, Hugo took the hint and shut up, settling back to doze.

      The carriage rattled on.

      Reluctantly, Philip allowed his likely future to take shape in his mind, envisioning his life with one of society’s belles by his side. His visions were unappealing. Disgusted, he banished them and determinedly set his mind to formulating a list of all the qualities he would insist on in his wife.

      Loyalty, reasonable wit, beauty to an acceptable degree—all these were easy to define. But there was a nebulous something he knew Jack and Harry Lester had found which he could find no words to describe.

      That vital ingredient was yet proving elusive when the carriage turned through tall gateposts and rumbled down the drive to Ruthven Manor. Tucked neatly into a dip of the Sussex Downs, the manor was an elegant Georgian residence built on the remains of earlier halls. The sun, still high, sent gilded fingers to caress the pale stone; stray sunbeams, striking through the surrounding trees, glinted on long, plain windows and highlighted the creepers softening the austere lines.

      His home. The thought resonated in Philip’s head as he descended from the carriage, the gravel of the forecourt crunching beneath his boots. With a glance behind to confirm that Hugo had awoken and was, in fact, alighting, he led the way up the steps.

      As he approached, the front doors were set wide; Fenton, butler at the Manor since Philip had been in short-coats, waited beside them, straight as a poker but smiling.

      “Welcome home, my lord.” Deftly, Fenton relieved his master of his hat and gloves.

      “Thank you, Fenton.” Philip gestured as Hugo strolled in. “Mr Satterly will be staying for a few days.” Unencumbered by ancestral acres, Hugo was a frequent visitor to the Manor.

      Fenton bowed, then reached for Hugo’s hat. “I’ll have your usual room made ready, sir.”

      Hugo smiled in easy acquiescence.

      Completing a brief scan of his hall, Philip turned back to Fenton. “And how is her ladyship?”

      On the floor above, poised at the top of the grand staircase, her head cocked to listen, Antonia Mannering decided that his voice was deeper than she remembered it. His question, however, was quite obviously her cue.

      Drawing in a deep breath, she closed her eyes in fleeting supplication, then opened them and started down. In a hurry. Not so precipitously as to be labelled hoydenish but rapidly enough to appear unconscious of the arrivals presently in the hall. She cleared the landing and started down the last flight, her eyes on the treads, one hand lightly skimming the balustrade. “Fenton, her ladyship wishes Trant to be sent up as soon as may be.” Only then did she allow herself to glance up.

      “Oh!” Her exclamation was perfectly gauged, containing just the right combination of surprise and fluster; she had practised for hours. Antonia slowed, then halted, her gaze transfixed. As it transpired, she needed no guile to make her eyes widen, her lips part in surprise.

      The scene before her was not as she had pictured it—not exactly. Philip was there, of course, turning from Fenton to view her, his strongly arched brows lifting, his eyes, grey, as she knew, reflecting nothing more than polite surprise.

      Swiftly, she scanned his features: the wide brow, heavy-lidded eyes and strongly patrician nose, the finely drawn lips above a firm and resolute chin. There was nothing in his expression, mildly distant, to cause her heart to beat wildly. Nevertheless, her pulse started to gallop; her breathing slowly seized. Panic of a wholly unprecedented nature fluttered to life within her.

      His gaze dropped from her face; snatching in a breath, Antonia grabbed a dizzying moment to take in his broad-shouldered frame. Freed by a smooth shrug, a many-caped greatcoat slid into Fenton’s waiting arms; the coat thus revealed was an unremarkable grey but so distinguished by line and form that not even she could doubt its origins. Brown hair waved in elegant disorder; his cravat was a collage of precise folds secured by a winking gold pin. Buckskin breeches clung to his long legs, outlining the powerful muscles of his thighs before disappearing into highly polished Hessians.

      Dragging in a second breath, Antonia hauled her gaze back to his face. In the same instant, his eyes lifted and met hers.

      He held her gaze, a frown in his eyes. His gaze shifted, focused on her hair, then dropped to her face.