Page 20 of Miss Dignified
Lydia put a hand to her hair. She’d forgotten her cap, so absorbed had she been in drafting her letter to Aunt Chloe and then setting up Mr. Brook’s office.
“What advice would that be?”
“Paying a call on Jeanette Dorning. At first, I thought to drop in after my ride, as family might, but then I thought no. Better to pay a morning call in proper morning attire.”
He was asking Lydia’s opinion. “You clean up nicely,” she said. “Do the pretty, and if her husband is on hand, he will be more favorably inclined toward you. The Dorning menfolk are protective of their womenfolk and of family generally.”
Too late, Lydia realized her mistake. A housekeeper did not refer to an earl’s siblings as “the Dorning menfolk.” She had stood up with the earl once or twice and also with one or two of his brothers. A big fellow—the Dornings were all big fellows—Hawthorne, maybe? And a smiling dark-haired charmer with a shorter name. Ash, Oak, Beech… Lydia could not recall.
“Has Goddard been complaining about his in-laws?” the captain asked, joining Lydia at the window.
“The colonel would never be so disloyal. Like everybody else, I occasionally peruse Debrett’s. I know Mrs. Dorning was married to the Marquess of Tavistock before she was widowed, for example.”
“Why would you know that?”
Because I am curious about anybody connected to you.“Because she is your cousin, and thus…”
Humor lurked in the captain’s blue eyes. “Yes, Mrs. Lovelace?”
Lydia fell back on what she hoped was a credible lie. “One wants to use proper address, if the occasion ever arises. When a former marchioness marries an earl’s brother, what becomes of her honorific? We haven’t much occasion to discuss such matters belowstairs.”
The captain reached past Lydia to twitch at the sash holding the curtain open. He squeezed the sachet affixed to the sash and released the scent of bergamot.
“She technically lost the honorific when she gained a second husband,” he said, “and I gather Jeanette is content with her bargain, though informally, she is likely still referred to as her ladyship. Did the letter upset you?”
A loud thump sounded from beyond the door, followed by cursing in Welsh. Something about a lackwitted bullock’s backside.
“We’re setting up an office for Mr. Brook in the old warming pantry,” Lydia said. “I hope you do not object.”
“And if I did?”
“Then I would ask you to assign Mr. Brook a proper space to do his job. A desk in the library, a corner of the schoolroom. One needs a place of one’s own, especially if one is handling wage books and other sensitive documents.”
“One does. Today is my day to commit oversights, apparently. You’ve rearranged the artwork in here.”
“I put the portraits where they’d suffer less damage from the sun.”
This explanation apparently amused the captain. “Where I don’t see them unless I go looking for a biography. Instead, my desk gives me a view of the Brecon Beacons and a landscape of Tragwyddoldeb in summer. Where did you find it?”
“Leaning against the wall behind the great harp in the music room. I gather your sister Tegan sent it to you, and you never hung it after you’d had it framed.” The painting of the family seat was the embodiment of rural repose, a pretty stone manor nestled among stately trees and rolling hills. Something in the landscape nonetheless hinted that this was not the tame, tidy English countryside. This was the wilder, more remote reaches of Wales—higher hills, a denser forest, sharper light—and the captain’s birthplace.
“Why hide such a glorious prospect,” Lydia asked, “and put in its place some dour old ancestor who looks as if smiling would break three Commandments?” She sidled around the captain and swiped a finger along the bottom of the landscape’s frame. By next week, the paintings would need a careful dusting, a task she reserved for herself.
“Perhaps I did not want the sun to damage Tegan’s work,” the captain said. “You never did tell me about your letter, Mrs. Lovelace. I gather it’s bad news.”
He was tenacious. If Lydia knew anything about Dylan Powell, it was that he did not give up on an objective, ever. She admired that about him—usually.
“My family did not approve of my decision to go into service.” Aunt Chloe had been appalled, though Mama had supported the plan. The measure was desperate and temporary, or should have been. The longer Lydia remained under the captain’s roof, the less she wanted to return to Tremont.
The captain resumed his perch against the desk. “You were to serve out your days in rural Shropshire, I take it. Too smart to settle for a yeoman’s son and not ruthless enough to try for a squire’s heir.”
“Your view of rural spinsterdom is not particularly flattering, Captain.” Though it was accurate.
“Do they want you to marry a cousin?” he asked. “A second cousin? I bought my colors in part to avoid such a match. Everybody—excepting myself—was certain the young lady and I would suit marvelously. I know how family can be.”
Stick as close to the truth as possible. Every lying schoolgirl knew that rubric. “They want me to come home. I wasn’t supposed to be gone this long. I wasn’t supposed to manage this well in Town.”
The captain stalked across the room, and while Lydia had never been afraid of him, she was tempted to take a step back.
