Her china-blue eyes widened as her bewilderment increased. “It doesn't sound at all like Julian, does it?”
Gareth gave a snort of laughter. “If it were anyone but St. Simon, I'd say he'd brought himself a light skirt back from the wars, but he's such a stickler for the proprieties, he'd never sully the precious turf of Tregarthan with an irregular liaison.”
Lucy blushed crimson and took a hasty gulp of her tea, choking as the liquid scalded her throat.
“Don't be such a ninny, Lucy,” Gareth said, not unkindly. “You know something of the facts of life, my dear. You're a married woman now, not a virginal chit. St. Simon's as red-blooded as the next man, he's just deuced strait-laced about where and when he indulges a man's natural urges.”
“Yes… yes, I suppose so.” Lucy pushed back her chair and stood up hastily. “If you'll excuse me, Gareth, I must talk with cook about the menus.”
She hastened from the room, leaving her husband to reflect that if St. Simon had been less strait-laced, Lucy might have been a more lively partner, both in bed and out of it. Her brother, ten years older than herself, had been her guardian for the seven years before her marriage, and his notions of propriety when it came to the behavior of a St. Simon were devilish strict.
It was a pity, really. Gareth refilled his ale tankard, noting with relief that his hangover was dissipating with each gulp. Lucy was a pretty little thing, and he found her soft, feminine roundness quite appealing, but she didn't know the first thing about pleasing a man. It was no wonder he continued to take his pleasures where he'd always taken them.
His scowl returned abruptly as some memory of the previous evening dimly surfaced through the brandy haze in which he'd spent the majority of the night. Marjorie had been nagging him again. She was always wanting something more. The diamond bracelet he'd given her hadn't been of the first water… the new dressmaker didn't know what she was doing, it was absolutely imperative she patronize Lutece instead. The money was nothing… nothing… not if he truly cared for her… and didn't she make him happy? Happier than a man deserved to be?
Gareth shifted in his chair, remembering with the familiar ache how very happy Marjorie could make a man. But her price was too damn high-and getting higher by the day.
He looked around the elegant parlor of the gracious Sussex mansion, out through the windows to the smooth expanse of lush green lawn. His family home had been going to rack and ruin when he'd married Lucy St. Simon. Her dowry had put it to rights, and it was her dowry that was financing Marjorie's expensive tastes… or, rather, his own expensive habits.
A faint waft of distaste disturbed the normally unruffled surface of his self-assurance, and the astonishing thought presented itself that he might try to break some of those habits. He was a married man, when all was said and done.
And the pile of bills from his creditors was growing ever larger… tailors and wine merchants and shoemakers and hatters. Tattersall's had to be settled, of course, on settlement day, and his debts of honor couldn't wait either. Fortunately, the tradesmen weren't pressing too hard for payment as yet; his marriage was recent enough to give him fairly extended credit, but he didn't care for the idea of having to apply to his brother in-law for a loan to settle his debts. St. Simon had already cleared a mountain as part of the marriage settlements.
Not that St. Simon would refuse him, or even pass comment on his brother-in-Iaw's profligacy, but he'd raise one of those bushy red-gold eyebrows and look as mildly incredulous as good breeding permitted.
No, it wasn't to be countenanced, if it could be avoided. Gareth pushed back his chair and stretched, frowning as an idea percolated through the gradually clearing fog of his hangover. Why not pay St. Simon a visit in the ancestral home? Rustication would be tedious, of course, but it would take him away from the temptations of Marjorie and the racetrack and the gamming tables, not to mention provide respite from his creditors' billets-doux. And maybe it wouldn't be that tedious. It might be amusing to see this Spanish lady St. Simon had under his wing. There was something rum there… very rum.
And besides, a little Cornish air would do Lucy the world of good. Quite peaky she'd been looking just recently. She loved Cornwall and all her childhood haunts and would be overjoyed at the prospect of spending a few weeks of the summer there with all her old girlhood friends.
Firmly convinced that he was acting entirely in his wife's best interests, Gareth Fortescue strolled out of the breakfast parlor to inform Lucy of his brilliant and noble decision.
“But, Gareth, Julian hasn't invited us.” Lucy turned from the secretaire in her parlor, dropping her pen to the carpet in her dismay. “We can't arrive uninvited.”
“Oh, nonsense!” Gareth dismissed this with an airy wave. “He's your brother, he'll be delighted to see you. Why, you haven't seen him since the wedding, and even that was only a fleeting visit, he was in such a hurry to get back to his regiment.”
“Yes… but… but, Gareth, what of this Spanish lady? If he'd wished me to come, he'd have asked me.”
“He didn't like to ask you to give top your summer to help him with this obligation, depend upon it,” Gareth declared comfortably. “After all, we're still barely home from our honeymoon.”
He smiled and chucked her beneath the chin. “Depend upon it, Lucy, he'll be grateful to have your help in entertaining this guest. Besides, he should have a hostess if he's entertaining a single lady, even if he is in some fashion her guardian. Your arrival will make everything all right and tight.”
Bending, he kissed her lightly. “Now, be a good girl and arrange everything, so we may leave by the end of next week. We'll journey by slow stages, so you won’t become fatigued.”
“Oh, dear,” Lucy murmured as the door closed on her husband's confident departure. While it was wonderful to have Gareth so cheerful and attentive, she knew her brother and knew that an unheralded arrival would not be appreciated. He didn't approve of Gareth, and sometimes Lucy had the sneaking suspicion that he didn't particularly like him, either. Her brother's bright-blue eyes would go cool and flat when he was talking to Gareth or even mentioning him in conversation. And he was always impeccably polite to him, as if to some very distant acquaintance.
Lucy had seen and heard her brother with his friends, and she knew how he despised what he called Society’s fribbles-men who wasted their time and energies in the clubs of St. James's and dancing attendance on the Season's belles and heiresses. Even from her own prejudiced viewpoint, Gareth came into that category. Unlike Julian, he was not a man of action and fierce opinion. But he was hardly unusual in that. It was Julian who was the strange one, according to Society’s lights.
She sighed and turned back to her secretaire, drawing toward her a piece of hot-pressed paper in her favorite pale blue, nibbling the end of her quill as she tried to think of a tactful way of announcing to her brother their imminent arrival at Tregarthan.
And what of this Spanish lady? What could she be like? Was she young? Presumably, if her father had left her to Julian's protection. It was not at all like Julian to take on such a task, but, then, he did have a very honed sense of duty and obligation. Perhaps the lady's father had saved his life, or something equally desperate.
Was she beautiful?
And what in the world would Cornish society make of someone sounding so exotic? They were plain, insular folk who had little truck with the world outside their own Cornish land. Maybe the Spanish orphan didn't even speak English.