A Wicked Gentleman - Softcover

Chapter 1

Absolutely out of the question." The emphatic statement was accompanied by an equally emphatic palm slapping onto the cherrywood table.

There was silence. The four elderly men sitting along one side of the table regarded the woman seated opposite them with expressions of serene confidence. Judgment had been pronounced by the patriarch, there was nothing more to be said.

Cornelia Dagenham looked down at the deeply polished surface of the table, thoughtfully examining her companions' bewhiskered reflections. They all radiated the pink-cheeked untroubled certainty of those who had never faced a moment's opposition or an instant of want in all their privileged years.

She raised her head and gazed steadily across the table at her father-in-law. "Out of the question, my lord?" Her voice held a note of faint incredulity. "I don't understand. A short sojourn in London is hardly an outlandish proposal."

It was the old earl's turn to look incredulous. "My dear Cornelia, of course it is. Never heard such an outlandish proposal." He glanced to either side, seeking confirmation from his peers.

"Quite right . . . quite right, Markby," murmured his immediate neighbor. "Lady Dagenham, you must see that it would be quite improper for you, a widow, to set up house in town."

Cornelia twisted her fingers together in her lap to keep them from drumming her impatience on the tabletop. "I was not suggesting setting up house, Lord Rugby, merely visiting London with a close friend and my sister-in-law for a few weeks. We would put up at Grillons Hotel, which you must admit is the height of respectability. We are all past the age of discretion, all perfectly capable of chaperoning ourselves without causing a raised eyebrow, even if we were interested in taking part in the season, which we are not. It will be educational for the children -- "

"Nonsense," the earl of Markby interrupted, slapping the table again. "Utter nonsense. You and your children belong here. Your place is to supervise the care of Stephen's son and heir, my heir indeed, until he's ready to go to Harrow. And that care is to take place at Dagenham Manor as his father would have wished."

Cornelia's lips tightened, and a tiny muscle in her cheek jumped, but she kept her voice quiet. "May I point out, my lord, that Stephen left the sole guardianship of our children to me. If I consider a trip to London to be in their best interests, then that is my decision, not the family's."

The earl's pink complexion darkened to a deep red, and a vein stood out on his temple. "Lady Dagenham, I will brook no opposition in this matter. As his trustees, we are responsible for Viscount Dagenham, my grandson, during his minority -- "

"You are mistaken, my lord," Cornelia interrupted with an upraised hand. She was very pale now, and her eyes, usually a warm and sunny blue, were bleached with a cold anger. "I and only I am responsible for my son during his minority. That was a decision my husband and I made together." She placed her hand in her lap, holding herself very still, her eyes never leaving the earl's.

He leaned forward, and his own gaze was narrowed as he stared at her. "That may be so, madam, but your trustees hold the purse strings. You can do nothing without funds, and I promise you, ma'am, those funds will not be released for such an irresponsible jaunt as this."

"Indeed, Cornelia, do but consider." A new voice joined the confrontation, but with a conciliatory edge to it. "You have no real experience of town. A single debutante season cannot give you the sophistication, the town polish you would need for such an excursion."

Gray eyes twinkled, a soft hand reached across the table to pat her arm. "Be sensible, my dear. Three inexperienced women, country mice all of you, would be eaten alive. You could not possibly manage to get about town . . ." A hand waved expressively. "Just think of all the little details, all the financial issues of hotels and carriages . . . matters that you have never had to trouble yourself about. You cannot make such a journey without a man to advise you."

Cornelia rose from her chair. "You mean well, Uncle Carlton, and I thank you, but believe me, my lords . . ." Her cold gaze swept their faces. "You underestimate these particular country mice. I intend to take my children to London for a month, whether you release the funds from the trust or not. I bid you good afternoon."

She bowed, a mere inclination of her head, and swung away towards the door, ignoring the earl's outraged rumble of expostulation, the scrape of chairs on wood as the trustees came hastily to their feet.

She took satisfaction from closing the door very gently behind her, but then all pretense of calm left her. She stood still, drawing several deep breaths, then swore softly but with all the fluency of a mariner.

"I take it matters didn't go your way, coz?" A soft voice spoke from the shadows beneath the curving staircase.

As the man stepped into full view, Cornelia regarded her late husband's first cousin with a rueful half smile. Tall and gangly, with a loose-limbed athleticism, Nigel Dagenham was an attractive young man straddling the line between boyhood and manhood. His present costume of violently striped waistcoat and impossibly high cravat made him look a lot younger than he realized, Cornelia reflected, closing her eyes for a second against the dazzle of puce and purple. He would do a lot better to revert to the casual country styles he had worn before going up to Oxford.

"How did you guess?" she said with a shrug.

"Your admirable command of expletives," he returned. Then he grinned, looking even younger than before. "My uncle has a carrying voice, and I confess I was a little close to the door."

Cornelia couldn't help but laugh. "You had your ear pressed to the keyhole, you mean?"

"Not quite," he said. "But surely it comes as no surprise that the trustees would refuse to let you take Stevie out of their jurisdiction?" His slate gray eyes were sympathetic. He had experienced the family curb bit himself often enough to understand how Cornelia felt.

"It's just for a month," she stated with some vehemence. "For God's sake, I wasn't suggesting I take him to Outer Mongolia."

"No," he agreed with the same sympathy. "I'd offer to intercede for you, but I'm not exactly in the earl's good books at present."

"Outrun the carpenter again, Nigel?" she inquired, noticing that his eyes were somewhat shadowed, his expression a little drawn. Her cousin-in-law was always in debt, and she guessed that his general tendency to extravagance was exacerbated by running with an expensive crowd at Oxford, one a lot plumper in the pocket than he was. And one with a deal more interest in cards and horses than the pursuit of elusive Greek and Latin texts.

"Creditors are a little pressing," he conceded. "In fact . . . in fact a few weeks of rustication was . . . uh . . . suggested." He flipped open a snuffbox and took a leisurely pinch with an air of sophistication that somehow didn't convince Cornelia.

"So this rustication was not exactly of your own choice?" she said. "You were sent down by the college?"

He shrugged ruefully. "You have it, coz . . . and for the rest of the year too. But the earl doesn't know that little detail. He thinks I'm in debt only until next quarter day and that I decided for myself that I needed to be away from the fleshpots of the dreaming spires for a couple of weeks. So mum's the word."

"Of course." Cornelia shook her head in mock reproof. "You can butter him up, though, Nigel. You know you can. Just play the prodigal nephew as well as you always do and the earl will come round."

"Funnily enough that's exactly why I'm here. I'm escorting the old misery everywhere he goes," Nigel said with another irreverent grin. "Offering my services as his aide-de-camp, if you like." He adjusted the highly starched folds of his cravat, winked at her, and turned to enter the library where his elderly relatives were still congregated.

Cornelia dismissed Nigel's concerns as her own loomed large again. She crossed the stone-flagged hallway to the great front door of the earl of Markby's ancestral home. A leather-aproned servant set down the coal scuttle he was carrying and hurried to open the front door for her.

"Cold out there, m'lady," he observed.

Cornelia gave him a nod of acknowledgment as she walked out, drawing a deep breath, shaking her head vigorously as if to rid herself of something distasteful. She barely noticed the sharp February air, bare tree branches bending under the gusty wind as she marched across the graveled sweep in front of the house and headed out across the frost-crisp lawn.

She paused at a once ornamental fishpond, now looking neglected and uninviting beneath the leaden skies, and bent to pick up a sizable twig blown down from one of the tall beach trees that lined the driveway. Her defiant declaration of intent had been just words. Without funds, she could not possibly leave Dagenham Manor, with or without her children.

Making no attempt this time to moderate her voice, Cornelia swore a barnyard oath and hurled the stick into the green, stagnant waters of the pond. It relieved her feelings somewhat, at the same time making her realize how cold she was in her flimsy muslin and thin sandals. The cloak she'd arrived in was still in Markby Hall, but she couldn't face going back for it . . . not until that smug, patronizing quorum of trustees had broken up. She'd borrow a pelisse from Ellie for her two-mile walk home, back to Dagenham Manor.

She strode around the pond towards a break in the privet hedge that separated the formal gardens from the home farm. Beyond the fields of the farm stretched the gorse-strewn heath of the New Forest, which in turn gave way to the richly wooded acres that had been hunted by the kings of England since before William Rufus the Red, the son of William the Conqueror, lost his life to an ill-aimed arrow. Or maybe it was a well-aimed arrow, legend was uncertain on the matter, but the Rufus Stone a few miles away over the heath, still mar...