Anne Gracie - Tallie's Knight

‘What’s dis?’

He didn’t know what to say. A wrinkle? A crease? A long dimple? No one had ever before had the temerity to refer to it. ‘Er…it’s my cheek.’

She traced the groove once more, thoughtfully, then took his chin in one hand, turned his head, and traced the matching line down his other cheek. Then carefully, solemnly, she traced both at the same time. She stared at him for a moment, then, smiling, returned to her story, reaching up every now and then to trace a tiny finger down the crease in his cheek.

Gradually her steady chatter dwindled and the curly little head began to nod. Abruptly she yawned and snuggled herself more firmly into the crook of his arms. ‘Nigh-nigh,’ she murmured, and suddenly he felt the small body relax totally against him.

She was asleep. Sound asleep—right there in his arms.

For a moment Magnus froze, wondering what to do, then slowly he began to breathe again. He knew himself to be a powerful man—both physically and in worldly terms—but never in his life had he been entrusted with the warm weight of a sleeping child. It was an awesome responsibility.

He sat there frozen for some twenty minutes, until a faint commotion sounded in the hall. A pretty young woman glanced in, a harried expression on her face. Freddie’s wife. Joan. Jane. Or was it Jenny? Magnus was fairly sure he recognised her from the wedding. She opened her mouth to speak, and then saw the small sleeping figure in his arms.

‘Oh, thank heavens!’ she exclaimed. ‘We’ve been looking everywhere for her.’

She turned and called to someone in the hallway. ‘Martha, run and tell Mr Freddie that we’ve found her.’

She turned back to Magnus. ‘I’m so sorry, Lord d’Arenville. We thought she’d got out into the garden and we’ve all been outside searching. Has she been a shocking nuisance?’

Magnus bethought himself of his ruined neckcloth and his no longer immaculate buckskins. His arm had a cramp from being unable to move and he had a nasty suspicion that there was a damp spot on his coat from where the little moppet had nuzzled his sleeve as she slept.

‘Not at all,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s been a pleasure.’

And, to his great surprise, Magnus realised he meant it.

London, February 1803

‘I want you to help me find a wife, Tish.’

‘Oh, certainly. Whose wife are you after?’ responded Laetitia flippantly, trying to cover her surprise. It was not like her self-sufficient cousin Magnus to ask help of anyone.

His chill grey stare bit into her. ‘I meant a bride. I find my own amours, thank you,’ said Magnus stiffly.

‘A bride? You? I don’t believe it, Magnus! You’ve hardly even talked to a respectable female in years—’

‘Which is why I require your assistance now. I wish the marriage to take place as soon as possible.’

‘As soon as possible? Heavens! You will have the matchmaking mamas in a tizzy!’ Laetitia sat back in her chair and regarded her cousin with faintly malicious amusement, elegantly pencilled eyebrows raised in mock surprise. ‘The impregnable Lord d’Arenville, on the scramble for a bride?’ Her rather hard blue eyes narrowed suddenly. ‘May I ask what has brought this on? I mean, seeking a bride is unexceptional enough—you will have to set up your nursery some time soon—but such unseemly haste suggests…There is no…ah…financial necessity for this marriage, is there, Magnus?’

Magnus frowned repressively. ‘Do not be ridiculous, Tish. No, it is as you have suggested—I have decided to set up my nursery. I want children.’

‘Heirs, you mean, Magnus. Sons are what you need. You wouldn’t want a string of girls, would you?’

Magnus didn’t reply. A string of girls didn’t sound at all bad, he thought. Little girls with big clear eyes, ruining his neckcloths while telling him long, incomprehensible stories. But sons would be good, too, he thought, recalling Freddie’s sturdy-legged boy, Sam.

The issue of getting an heir was, in fact, the last thing on his mind, even though he was the last of a very distinguished name. Until his journey to Yorkshire it had been a matter of perfect indifference to Magnus if his name and title ended with him. They had, after all, brought him nothing but misery throughout his childhood and youth.

However, far easier to let society believe that d’Arenville required an heir than that a small, sticky moppet had found an unexpected chink in his armour. It was ridiculous, Magnus had told himself a thousand times. He didn’t need anything. Or anyone. He never had and he never would. He’d learned that lesson very young.

But the chink remained. As did the memory of a sleeping, trustful child in his arms. And a soft little finger curiously tracing a line down his cheek.

It was a pity he’d had to ask Laetitia’s assistance. He’d never liked her, and saw her only as often as duty or coincidence demanded. But someone had to introduce him to an eligible girl, damn it! If he wanted children he had to endure the distasteful rigmarole of acquiring a wife, and Laetitia could help expedite the matter with the least fuss and bother.

He returned to the point of issue. ‘You will assist me, Tish?’

‘What exactly did you have in mind? Almack’s? Balls, routs and morning calls?’ She laughed. ‘I must confess, I cannot imagine you doing the pretty, with all the fond mamas looking on, but it will be worth it, if only for the entertainment.’

He shuddered inwardly at the picture she conjured up, but his face remained impassive and faintly disdainful. ‘No, not quite. I thought a house party might do the trick.’

‘A house party?’ She shuddered delicately. ‘I loathe the country at this time of year.’

Magnus shrugged. ‘It needn’t be for long. A week or so will do.’

‘A week!’ Laetitia almost shrieked. ‘A week to court a bride! Lord, the ton will never stop talking about it.’

Magnus clenched his jaw. If there had been any other way he would have walked out then and there. But his cousin was a young, apparently respectable, society matron—exactly what he required. No one else could so easily introduce him to eligible young ladies. And she could help him circumvent the tedium of the dreaded marriage mart—courting under the eyes of hundreds. He shuddered inwardly again. Laetitia might be a shallow featherbrain with a taste for malicious gossip, and he disliked having to ask for her assistance in anything, but she was all he had.

‘Will you do it?’ he repeated.

Laetitia’s delicately painted features took on a calculating look. Magnus was familiar with the expression; he usually encountered it on the faces of less respectable females, though he’d first learnt it from his mother. He relaxed. This aspect of the female of the species was one he knew how to deal with.

‘It might be awkward for me to get away—the Season may not have started, but we have numerous engagements…’ She glanced meaningfully at the over-mantel mirror, the gilt frame of which bore half a dozen engraved invitations.

‘And to organise a house party at Manningham at such short notice…’ She sighed. ‘Well, it is a great deal of work, and I would have to take on extra help, you know…and George might not like it, for it will be very expens—’

‘I will cover all expenses, of course,’ Magnus interrupted. ‘And I’ll make it worth your while, too, Laetitia. Would diamonds make it any easier to forgo your balls and routs for a week or two?’

Laetitia pursed her lips, annoyed at his bluntness but unable to resist the bait. ‘What—?’

‘Necklace, earrings and bracelet.’ His cold grey eyes met hers with cynical indifference. Laetitia bridled at his cool certainty.