Spirited Brides Read online

  “Indeed, she is,” Sarah answered. Lord Ransome offered his arm, and she took it to walk with him back to where his horse was tethered. “Well, now you have met our entire party here. It was very good of you to invite them to your supper. I hope it will not make it too crowded?”

  “Not at all. I’m sure they will be very charming additions.” He unlooped the reins from the tree branch. “I look forward to seeing you—all of you, of course.”

  Sarah found she looked forward to it, too. Very much.

  Chapter Seven

  “Lord Ransome is a handsome gentleman, is he not?”

  “Hm?” Sarah did not even look up from the book she was perusing, but inside she smiled at Mary Ann’s words. Lord Ransome was indeed handsome—more than handsome. It was simply too bad that he was not an antiquarian, did not even show interest in becoming one.

  Or perhaps it was all for the best. For if he was as interested in history as she was, then he would be quite perfect. And she had no time right now for such distractions—or for becoming better acquainted with Lord Ransome, not when he could pull her work out from under her at any moment.

  Mary Ann, who was curled up next to the fireplace with her sketchbook, repeated, “I said Lord Ransome is very handsome, for an older gentleman.”

  Sarah laughed aloud at that. “He is hardly old, Mary Ann! Though I must say he is probably bit too old for you, if that is what you are thinking of.”

  “Oh, so now you think I am transferring my ‘infatuation,’ as you call it, for Mr. Hamilton onto Lord Ransome!” Mary Ann said indignantly. “Well, I am certainly not. I was never infatuated with Mr. Hamilton, and I am not so with Lord Ransome, either. I merely said that he was handsome. It was just an observation.”

  Sarah gave her sister a conciliatory smile. “I am sorry if I sounded condescending, dear one. I did not mean to imply that you had any sort of feelings for Lord Ransome. And you are right, he is handsome. Quite so. Just remember, handsome is as . . .”

  “. . . handsome does,” Mary Ann finished, in a perfect imitation of their mother’s “lecturing” voice. “So Mother always says, and she must mean it, since she and the Dowager Lady Lyndon are always giggling like school-girls over old Colonel Webster, and he is in no way outwardly handsome.”

  “And very old, too, eh?” Sarah teased.

  Mary Ann gave an embarrassed little laugh. “Oh, all right, so Lord Ransome is not so very old. Not old for having done all the things he did on the Peninsula.”

  “How do you know what he did on the Peninsula?” Sarah set aside her book. This conversation was proving to be more interesting than the history of Jorvik.

  “I was talking to one of the workers, a Mr. Smith, while you showed Lord Ransome the objects in the stable. Mr. Smith’s family has lived on Ransome land for simply ages, and he knows all the on dits. Lord Ransome was a major in the Forty-first Foot, and fought very bravely at all sorts of battles. He saved many, many lives, and Wellington himself commended him, and his regiment even gave him a medal.” Mary Ann’s voice was breathless as she recited this litany of gallantry.

  Sarah had to admit that even she was impressed. Lord Ransome certainly looked the part of the brave officer, but, as Sarah well knew, appearances could often be deceiving. There was many a man who strutted about in his regimentals, bragging to the ladies about exploits they had never performed. It seemed Lord Ransome was no such preening peacock.

  “It sounds as if Lord Ransome was very brave,” she said.

  “Indeed.” Mary Ann’s wide, dark gaze turned shrewd as she looked at Sarah. “He seemed to like you a great deal. He listened very intently to everything you said about the Vikings.”

  Sarah felt her cheeks grow uncomfortably warm, and she glanced back down at her book. “Of course, he listened, Mary Ann. This is his land we are working on. He is bound to be interested in what happens on it.”

  Mary Ann shook her head. “No, it is not just that. He was admiring you, not the work.”

  “Mary Ann! Really,” Sarah cried. It had been a long time since she was teased about a gentleman by her girl-friends; so long ago, she could not even remember it. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it now, especially from her baby sister. It made her want to squirm.

  Ancient Viking relics she was quite comfortable with. Men, especially handsome, young ones, she was not so sure about.

  “What?” Mary Ann said innocently. “I merely observed that Lord Ransome seems to admire you. And why should he not? You are very lovely.”

  “And I am also newly widowed.”

  “Hardly new! Sir John has been gone for over a year. It is perfectly respectable for Lord Ransome to admire you, and for—for . . .”

  Sarah was quite curious against her will. What was Mary Ann going to say? “For what?”

  Mary Ann shrugged. “For whatever may happen to happen.”

  “I am not thinking of marrying again, as I have told you and Phoebe many times. I am far too busy. If I did want to look about for another husband, I would do so among my friends, among other scholars.” She gave her sister a rueful smile. “A man like Lord Ransome would not find a woman like me very interesting for very long.”

  “Fustian!” Mary Ann cried. “How could he not?”

  “Well, for one thing, his station is far above mine. The Bellweathers and the Iversons are respectable, but hardly at the level of a marquis. And that is only the beginning of the reasons Lord Ransome and I would not suit. But we don’t have time to discuss this now! Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton are coming to supper, and we have to change our gowns.”

  Mary Ann sighed, and shuffled her sketches back into their portfolio. “Very well. May we discuss it later, then?”

  “No! Later we will have too much work to do to giggle over men.”

  “Oh, Sarah! You are no fun at all.”

  “Imagine it, Neville! Only here one day, and we are invited to a marquis’s supper party!” Emmeline Hamilton peered into her dressing-table mirror, and dusted rice powder over her cheeks. Then she reached for her jewel case and dug inside it for a pair of pearl earrings. “It is absolutely splendid.”

  Neville Hamilton, who had been staring out the window of his wife’s inn bedchamber down to the street below, looked over his shoulder at Emmeline, watching her uncertainly. She appeared happier than he had seen her since the days of their courting. Her pale blue eyes sparkled with life. All because of the prospect of supping with a marquis.

  When he first met Emmeline, at an assembly in Bath, where he had gone to visit his old aunt, he had thought her so fun, so fresh. Not at all like the serious, scholarly women he was accustomed to. She flirted with him, and flattered him as no woman ever had. He had always been rather shy with ladies, comfortable only with his studies and his work, but Emmeline had taken no notice of that. She looked at him as if he were the strongest, the most handsome man in all of England.

  That had been very reassuring, after his recent disappointment when Lady Iverson had not given him the village project after Sir John’s death. He was a man, her husband’s colleague, and she was just a woman, albeit an intelligent one. She had known nothing about Vikings, about antiquarian work, until she married Sir John and he taught her. Yet she refused to give it over to him!

  Emmeline had thought that was appalling. She had looked at him with wide, sympathetic eyes, and laid her little, white, soft hand on his sleeve. Those eyes, along with the ten thousand pounds of her dowry, convinced him to relinquish his bachelorhood.

  So he had married her. And all was well, until their wedding trip to Scotland. He wanted to explore ancient castles and forts, and saw it as a perfect opportunity to teach his bride more about his work. Yet Emmeline saw no interest in marching through the heather to look at ruins. She spent all her time changing into the various elaborate gowns of her trousseau, and talking about the soirees they would have once they were settled into their own house in Bath.

  Bath! Neville never wanted to live in Bath. He almost snorted aloud
now, as he watched his wife slide jeweled combs into her elaborate coiffure. One would have thought she was going to the Court of St. James, not to supper at Lady Iverson’s hunting box home.

  No, married life was not at all what he had hoped. Perhaps he should have married pretty little Mary Ann Bellweather, who looked at him with worshipful dark eyes. She seemed malleable to learn anything there was to know about history, but she did not have ten thousand pounds, as Emmeline did.

  Not that the ten thousand would last long, with the amount Emmeline spent on clothes and jewels. There would soon be nothing left at all for his studies.

  “Papa will be so pleased when I write to him that we have met a marquis!” she went on, giving her hair one last pat. “Perhaps once we have our house in Bath, Lord Ransome will come to a party there. A supper. No, a ball! I would be the envy of all my friends.”

  “Emmeline!” Neville burst out. His hand crushed the cravat he was trying to tie. “I have told you several times I have no intention of living in Bath, at least not for many years. We must finish the work on the village; then there is that new find in Northumberland to be explored.”

  Emmeline slapped her hand against the dressing table, rattling glass pots and bottles. The sparkle on her face faded as if it had never been there, and her pink lips flattened. “I do not want to hear another word about Vikings! I refuse to spend my whole life as I did our wedding trip, shivering in the wind while you go dig up some moldy old bits and pieces. When I married you, I thought . . .” Her voice trailed away, and she closed her eyes.

  “What?” Neville said, frustrated beyond all belief. “What did you think?”

  Emmeline shook her head. “Just that you would know people, people who are something in Society, with titles and all—like Lady Iverson. That we would have a fine home, where I could entertain, as I have always dreamed of doing. Instead, we’re here at an inn in this pokey old village, and you say we will never live in Bath! It is not what I expected.”

  “Marriage is not what I expected, either,” Neville muttered, so low that Emmeline could not hear. His entire life was not what he expected. It was blighted by women—first by Sarah Iverson, who refused to yield him his rightful place at the Viking village, and now by his silly wife.

  It was infuriating.

  Emmeline, completely unconscious of his stewing thoughts, reached for her gloves, a new smile forming. “Well,” she said, “at least we have met a marquis. It is too bad he won’t be at supper tonight! I can hardly wait until the party at Ransome Hall.”

  Miles sat at his desk in the library at Ransome Hall, reports and plans for the estate spread out before him. But he wasn’t really paying attention to any of that. He leaned back in his chair, watching the red-gold flames dance in the grate, sending light piercing into the dark corners of the vast room.

  The map on the top of the pile detailed the corner where Lady Iverson’s village sat, with notes drawn up by the bailiff. He wrote about soil conditions, possible crops, spots where cottages could be built.

  Cottages to house unfortunate ex-soldiers, like the Lieutenant O’Riley Miles had met in London, and their families. It was a grand plan, one that could combat unemployment and hunger, at least for a few. It was all that he could have wanted to accomplish.

  But all he could see in his mind was Lady Iverson’s face as she showed him the village, the objects so carefully laid out and labeled. Her eyes shone like dark stars, and her wide, mobile, kiss-tempting mouth curved with delight. She loved those dusty fragments as most women loved gowns and jewels. Her tanned, capable little hands were tender as she touched them, and turned them over and over. It made him wonder, beyond all sense, how it would feel if she touched him like that, if she looked at him as she did old soapstone spindles.

  What would it feel like, if she was to care for him even a quarter as much as she did her village? No man could ask for more, for it was very clear how much she did care about her work. It shone from her like an aura.

  They had only known each other for a very short time, yet he liked her, felt drawn to her. How could he take away her work? That would be unconscionably caddish of him, and she would probably never speak to him again.

  But how could he go against his conscience, when he knew how desperately good men needed the jobs his land could bring? He remembered the vast expanse of ropes and pits where she had been digging, stretching as far as the eye could see, across prime farmland.

  Miles buried his face in his hands, pushing back his hair with his fingers. He did not know what to do. Battles and the rigors of camp life on the Peninsula had been simple compared to this. Simple, with no Lady Iverson there, with her dark eyes and bouncing curls to make him forget his duties. He knew what was expected of him there at all times, and what was the right thing to do.

  He missed those days.

  Miles laughed. No man in his right mind should ever prefer a dusty tent to the splendors of Ransome Hall, the advantages of a title! He must be out of his mind!

  He reached for the tiny fragment of ancient chain mail that Lady Iverson gave him, and turned it in the firelight. What Viking warrior had once worn it? Had he been driven mad by a Norwegian woman’s flashing eyes? Had he sailed away in order to escape new and unwelcome emotions? Had he drifted out into the unknown waters?

  For that was what Miles felt he was doing. Floating adrift into something he had never seen before.

  Chapter Eight

  Sarah examined the gowns laid out on her bed, trying to decide which one to wear at that night’s supper party at Ransome Hall. Usually, she just wore whichever gown her maid pressed, or the first one she came across in the wardrobe, but today she could not stop dithering like a young miss on her way to her first ball.

  She held up one gown, then another, peering at her reflection in the looking glass. Each dress seemed duller and less fashionable than the last, all of them the grays and lilacs of half-mourning. She didn’t want a gown like one of Mrs. Hamilton’s fussy pink-and-white creations, but something with a bit more—more dash would be nice. Something with color and shine.

  She found a cinnamon brown silk she had worn before John died, and draped it around her shoulders, over her chemise. It would be all right, if only it did not make her look so very brown all over! Brown eyes, brown hair, brown dress. Terrible.

  Oh, nothing was right, she thought, and threw the gown down on top of all the others. She might as well just wear one of her old work dresses. Lord Ransome had already seen her looking like a ragamuffin in one of them, anyway.

  That thought froze her in her agitated tracks. She stood still, and stared down at the gowns. Lord Ransome. Was he the reason she was in such a flurry over her attire? Did she want him to admire her in a fine gown, to forget he had seen her all dusty and dank?

  “No,” she whispered, sitting down heavily on the nearest chair, which happened to be covered with more gowns and shawls. She had never dressed for men’s admiration—she could hardly afford to start now.

  Lord Ransome needed to see her as a sensible, capable scholar, one whose work must be completed. That was all.

  That was all.

  There was a quick knock at the door, and Mary Ann popped in without waiting to be summoned. She was already dressed for the party, in a pretty gown of pale pink muslin, her hair tied back with a bandeau of pink ribbons and seed pearls.

  “Sarah, what do you think of these gloves? Do they make . . .” Her voice faded as she took in the heaps of discarded garments, the slippers scattered across the carpet. “You aren’t dressed yet!”

  “I cannot decide what to wear,” Sarah answered faintly.

  “What do you mean? You are always ready for parties and outings faster than any of us! Where is your maid?”

  “She is in the kitchen, no doubt chattering with Rose and the cook. I saw no sense in calling her until I made up my mind.”

  “Which you just cannot seem to do?” Mary Ann gave her a skeptical look, and walked over to the bed to begin
sorting through the gowns. “I don’t see anything wrong with these.”

  “They’re dull.”

  “Hm. Perhaps, just a bit.” She threw Sarah a teasing glance over her shoulder. “But that never seemed to bother you before!”

  Sarah laughed in spite of herself. “Mary Ann!”

  Mary Ann reached to the bottom of the pile, and pulled out a gown. “This one isn’t dull at all. And it looks as if you have never worn it!”

  “I haven’t.” Sarah regarded the gown with surprise. She had forgotten she owned it, and hadn’t even noticed it when she drew all the gowns out of the wardrobe. It was one of her black ones, purchased to wear to an historical lecture in Brighton when she had a flash of bold feeling, then abandoned on the day for a more staid gown when the boldness faded. It was made of a rich black velvet, so soft and deep that in certain lights it appeared purple or dark blue. The long, fitted sleeves were of sheer black tulle, tied at the wrists with black satin ribbon. More ribbon trimmed the low, rounded neckline.

  Mary Ann held it against herself, stroking her hand over the fabric. “It is marvelous, Sarah. You must wear it.”

  Sarah was sorely tempted. It was a gown made for someone totally unlike herself, someone daring and flirtatious, someone unafraid of the world and sure of her place in it. Not someone who always had to be sensible. Not someone who spent her days getting hot and dirty working under the sun.

  “I shouldn’t wear black,” she said. “My year of deep mourning is over.”

  “Who says you cannot still wear black?” Mary Ann argued. “And this is not just any dull old black, this is—beautiful. Oh, Sarah, you have to wear this one!”

  Sarah looked from the black gown to the others still piled on the bed and chairs. They lay there in a jumble of brown and gray, just meant for a sensible lady antiquarian.

  She made up her mind.

  “Very well,” she said. “I will wear it.” She stood up, all her fluttering uncertainty gone now. She felt more like her levelheaded self—but a new levelheaded self, one who wore daring gowns. “Now, Mary Ann, be a dear and ring for my maid for me, so she can dress my hair. We will be late, and that would never do.”