Deborah Hale - A Gentleman Of Substance

For an instant Lucy regretted her resentment of Drake’s cousin. Despite her nagging and condescending airs, at least Phyllipa tried to be sympathetic.

“Don’t worry your head about it. I’ll go talk to Drake.” She set off after him.

He had not gone far when Phyllipa caught up with him.

“Drake Strickland, how could you? We all know you married Lucy for one reason only, but must you flaunt the fact by paying her so little mind? Could you not see how crushed she was by your refusal to take her to London?”

Trying manfully to control his temper, Drake felt his back teeth grinding. The situation was intolerable. Other men had wives who nagged them. His wife enlisted an expert to nag him on her behalf.

“Lucy and I are staying at Silverthorne. If you are so anxious to get home, Phyllipa, by all means, go.” Drake reminded himself that by home, he meant his own town house in London. He had put the place at her disposal after the death of his cousin Clarence.

Phyllipa sighed. “Much as I would love to get back to London, I know my duty, Drake. Lucy is so very attached to me. She depends on me to steer her through these early days in her new position. I could not think of deserting the poor child.”

“My wife is not a child.” She was very much a woman, and Drake wished to heaven he could ignore the fact. “Sooner or later she must learn to manage on her own.”

Phyllipa blinked her eyes in a look of mild reproof. “Only yesterday I mentioned to her how I should like to get back to London before the snow flies. If you could have seen the tears in her eyes as she pleaded with me to stay another fortnight, you would not be so unsympathetic, Drake.”

Another fortnight in the company of Phyllipa and her odious little Reggie? Drake wondered how he would bear it. Mentally he added another item to his tally of grievances against his wife.

“Of course Lucy couldn’t object to my leaving if the two of you came along with us for a visit. That is why I broached the subject. Didn’t you hear how eagerly she greeted the idea? She has never been there, you know, but I can tell how she longs for it. She gets such a sweet wistful look when she talks about spending last winter with her aunt in Bath. Why, only the other day she said to me, ‘Phyllipa, do you suppose Drake is too ashamed to take me out in society?’’’

To cover his acute discomfort, Drake made a few derisive noises deep in his throat. Ashamed? What nonsense!

“It quite broke my heart to hear her,” continued Phyllipa. “I hastened to assure her that nothing could be further from the truth. However, when she learns of your latest answer on the subject, I fear she will take the news very hard.”

Drake suspected his cousin Clarence might have been glad to die and escape this woman’s fretting and badgering.

“Nonetheless, I have made my decision.”

Shaking her head dolorously as she started back for the breakfast room, Phyllipa cast him a reproachful look. Drake chose to ignore it. Beneath the frigid surface of his composure, resentment seethed. If Lucy had cause to complain of their marriage, why did she not speak to him directly, instead of setting her bosom companion, Phyllipa, to hound him?

He gained the entry hall with a mixture of relief and exasperation. Relieved to be making his escape for another day. Exasperated at how his wife and her crony had made him a fugitive from his own home.

“Begging your pardon, sir.”

Drake spun around to find the cook waiting on him, neat as a pin in her starched apron and cap, with every grey hair smoothed into place. A tiny scrap of a woman, somewhat plump from sampling her own good cooking, she’d been the only motherly influence in his life. Drake smiled in spite of himself.

“I am at your service, Mrs. Maberley. What can I do for you this morning?”

“Well, your lordship.” She addressed Drake’s knees, a purplish flush creeping up above her high collar. “I’d be most obliged if you’d start interviewing for a new cook.”

Drake didn’t think he’d heard right. “Surely you’re not giving notice, Mrs. Maberley.” The very idea! “Did I forget to mention how much I enjoyed your seedcake the other night?”

The cook shifted from one foot to another. “Very kind of you to say so, I’m sure, milord. I am giving notice, as soon as you can find a replacement.”

“I couldn’t possibly replace you, Mrs. Maberley. At best I’d get someone to prepare our meals. You have been the heart of Silverthorne for as long as I can recall. How often I used to steal down the back stairs, when I was a little fellow, to find a bit of seedcake or gingerbread for bedtime tuck.”

A nostalgic smile momentarily lit Mrs. Maberley’s motherly features. “You were such a spindly little shaver in them days, Master Drake. A body couldn’t help wanting to fatten you up. You still want filling out,” she added tartly.

“So you won’t desert me…I mean us.” He had a devil of a time over that collective pronoun, Drake mused. Try as he might, he could not think of himself as part of a couple.

Mrs. Maberley shook her head. “It’s been many a year since you were a lad scavenging for a bite at bedtime, Master Drake. And likely you thought me an old woman back then…”

If only Jeremy was here, Drake thought. His charming half brother had always known exactly what people wanted to hear. What’s more, he’d been able to deliver it with an air of candid charm that ensured he always got his way. Though a trenchant observation or a mordant jest slipped easily enough from his own tongue, Drake had never mastered the skill of putting his deepest feelings into words.

“Never,” he protested. “Well, perhaps a little…”

Mrs. Maberley nodded knowingly. “I am getting on in years. Thanks to the handsome wages you pay me, I’ve been able to save a little nest egg to retire on. You need some fresh blood around Silverthorne, to do everything up proper for your new missus.”

Suddenly Drake understood. “Has my wife been giving you any trouble, Mrs. Maberley? Is that why you want to leave?”

“Oh, no, your lordship, not at all. Her ladyship’s a lovely girl.”

“But…?” Drake prompted. He could sense it coming. What airs was the vicar’s daughter giving herself as mistress of Silverthorne?

The cook looked torn between a desire to avoid trouble and a need to voice long-stifled complaints. “It’s just that her ladyship isn’t partial to my cooking. Her plate always comes back to the kitchen hardly touched.”

Drake opened his mouth to explain Lucy’s lack of appetite. Then he shut it again. Was it too early for the symptoms of pregnancy to be appearing, if Lucy had conceived on their wedding night, as they wanted everyone to believe? If it had been a case of equine gestation, he would have known instantly.

“I promise I will speak to her ladyship, Mrs. Maberley. I doubt she meant any intentional insult. Do say you’ll stay on. If you feel the workload is becoming too much, I’ll engage you a battalion of scullery maids.”

“It’s not just her ladyship, milord. There’s Lady Phyllipa and Master Reginald. Always pestering me for special dishes and trays sent up to her room. Complains the boy won’t eat what I give him. Then I catch the young rascal stealing my fresh jam buns out of the pantry. I wouldn’t mind it if he et his supper like a good boy. He don’t need no fattening up, I can tell you.”

“They won’t be staying much longer, Mrs. Maberley,” Drake assured her. One way or the other, he’d have them out by the end of the week. If his wife couldn’t manage without her friend, she could go off to London with them and good riddance.

“I’m sure I don’t want to leave if I don’t have to.”