Lady violet enjoys a fro.., p.1
Lady Violet Enjoys a Frolic, page 1
Lady Violet Enjoys a Frolic
The Lady Violet Mysteries—Book Four
Grace Burrowes
Grace Burrowes Publishing
Lady Violet Enjoys a Frolic
Copyright © 2021 by Grace Burrowes
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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* * *
Cover design: Wax Creative, Inc.
Cover image: Cracked Light Studio
Contents
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
To my dear readers
Lady Violet Holds a Baby—Excerpt
Dedication
This series is dedicated
to my nephew, Jackson
Chapter One
The greatest mistake of my life had been submitting to the authority of a husband simply to escape the authority of my father.
As a widow of means, I wanted to be very certain of my motivations before I embarked on a second marital journey.
My travels northward to Scotland with Hugh St. Sevier had been trying in the extreme, largely because he and I had not yet become lovers. Our journey south was going by much too rapidly to suit me, in part because we were now intimates. I had no wish to return to London, where my conscientiously attentive vicar, curious domestic staff, and compulsively nosy neighbors would all remark my closer friendship with St. Sevier.
I had given Hugh permission to pay me his addresses, but as my traveling coach rolled through Cumberland and then Westmoreland counties, I had time—far too much time—to question my decision. My first marriage had been trying for all concerned. I wasn’t ready to leap into a second, even with Hugh, whom I adored more ardently the longer I knew him.
To my great delight, our return to London was to be delayed by a detour into the Lake District.
“Tell me about our host,” I said, pulling off my gloves and unlacing my boots as the traveling coach swayed out of the innyard. “Was he your commanding officer?”
“Lord Rutland was not exactly my commanding officer,” St. Sevier said. “He was Colonel Damien Rutherford then, and I was a medical volunteer. I was technically answerable to a separate chain of command, but I served under Rutherford nonetheless. He is married to the former Athena Grossnickel, heiress to the Grossnickel wealth and daughter of General Octavian Grossnickel.”
I was a veteran of half a dozen London Seasons and an earl’s daughter. I had heard of the Grossnickels, a fine old Derbyshire family with a sizable coal fortune.
“She would be several years older than I am,” I said, “but I don’t believe she made a proper come out.”
“Mrs. Grossnickel followed the drum, and the children with her. Athena has two sisters, and no brothers.”
Hence the heiress designation. “Were you sweet on the fair Athena?”
St. Sevier’s smile was wistful, turning a handsome countenance gorgeous. “We were all in love with Athena, but given that I am French, my loyalties were always suspect among the English. I worshipped from afar, until I met my Annie. Dare I hope you are preparing to nap so early in the day, Violet?”
“Your hopes are your business,” I said, untying my bonnet ribbons and setting my hat on the opposite bench. “I intend to be comfortable. Who else from your old regiment lives in the area?”
“Thomas MacNeil, our quartermaster, serves as Lord Rutland’s senior steward. MacNeil was part magician, part abacus. Whether we needed horse blankets or cooking pots, he had an amazing ability to conjure goods from thin air. He wasn’t as successful with medical supplies, but then, nobody was. MacNeil is a quiet sort, salt of the earth. An easy man to like.”
Hugh was easy to like, easy on the eye, and also an easy man to love. He was slightly more than six feet of French good looks, with wavy chestnut hair, dark brown eyes, and a smile that made me believe in every good, sweet thing fate had yet to reveal. Hugh was also slow to judge his fellow mortal and slower to anger. When he was truly in a temper, his rage was cold, which I much preferred to silly drama staged to garner undeserved attention.
Life had not always been kind to him—he had lost a spouse in Spain—and yet, he had a bone-deep decency that contrasted with the exquisite manners and flexible morals my late husband had exhibited. Freddie had been charming, but Freddie’s charm had been deployed as a weapon, to manipulate. Hugh charmed for the pleasure of being agreeable company.
In the manner of many aristocratic French sons, Hugh had been sent for safekeeping to relatives in England as the French revolution had been followed by successive governments, the Reign of Terror, intrigues at the highest level, wars, and finally, the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Several of Hugh’s siblings had died fighting for l'empereur, while Hugh had trained as a physician in Scotland. His medical knowledge was extensive, and he’d served with Wellington’s army willingly, patching up French and English soldiers alike, as did his French counterparts.
“Did Lord Rutland and MacNeil know your late wife?” I asked.
“They did, not well. Annie got on poorly with the other women, and our union was as stormy as it was brief. Shall I fold out the benches, my lady?”
I curled down against him, pillowing my head on his muscular thigh. “If you fold out the benches, I will be tempted to take liberties with your person. Lady Rutland will probably house me two floors and a guest wing apart from you. I am not looking forward to observing the proprieties, St. Sevier.”
He stroked my hair gently. “Scotland was lovely.”
In Scotland, we had been the guests of an old school friend of mine, and she had billeted us in the former laird and lady’s private apartment—the best guest rooms she could offer. We’d had separate bedrooms—should we desire to use them—and only a private sitting room between them.
“Scotland was scrumptious,” I said, resisting the urge to move into Hugh’s touch. St. Sevier was affectionate by nature, one of many reasons I cherished him. “I really do not want to return to London, Hugh.”
“Are you afraid I will abandon you in Town?”
I was both afraid I would lose my nerve for frolicking when back in my familiar surroundings and afraid that fate would snatch Hugh from me, as Freddie had been snatched from me. I hadn’t been in love with Freddie, but neither had I expected him to expire after a mere five years of marriage.
“I have enjoyed the privacy we’ve shared during our travels,” I said. “Have you ever been to the Lakes before?”
He grasped my hand and kissed my knuckles. “I will not abandon you when we return to London, mon coeur. I will court you with equal parts passion and gentlemanly discretion. I have not been to the Lakes previously, to answer your question, and I look forward to seeing the area with you. Long walks, picnics, excursions on horseback, and lazy afternoons with a fishing pole are on the itinerary I have planned for us.”
“And naps?”
“Napping is part of picnicking, I’m told. Do you truly dread returning to London so much, Violet?”
I did, though I wasn’t sure why. Spring was London’s best season, according to many, and I would hardly have time to unpack my trunks in Town before I was due to nip out to Surrey to attend the christening of the first Deerfield grandson. I was to be godmother to my brother Felix’s firstborn, a bittersweet honor when I’d been unable to present Freddie with any children.
“I was unhappy in Town,” I said, “as a bride, a wife, and a widow.”
“Then don’t bide in Town, Violet. Life is short and uncertain. Bide where you are happy. Are you sure you don’t want to fold out the benches? I asked John Coachman to make a leisurely progress for this leg of our journey. Even taking our time, we will likely reach Rutland Wood by midafternoon.”
At the pace we were going, a change of teams would not be needed for at least another hour and a half.
“I am not in an amorous mood,” I said, “meaning no reflection on present company.”
“You are pensive,” St. Sevier said, pulling off his boots. “We will have a cuddle and a nap and arrive refreshed to our destination.”
We had the business of folding out the benches to make a bed of the coach’s interior down to a science, and once I was sprawled against St. Sevier’s side, I found my eyes growing heavy. Hugh, true to his word, held me while I slept, and yet, when he handed me down at Rutland Wood later that day, I still felt far from refreshed.
Had anybody told me that my host, Damien, Lord Rutland, had charm to eclipse even the vast stores St. Sevier claimed, I would not have believed them. His lordship was no boy, his blue eyes having crow’s feet, his countenance being a trifle weathered. His physique was trim and muscular, though he lacked a few inches of St. Sevier’s height, and the barest thread of
His smile was nonetheless the warmest, friendliest, merriest specimen I had encountered in many a year. Faint echoes of my late husband’s insouciance echoed in that smile, as did the ability to create an instant conspiracy of two against all the world’s seriousness and woe.
“Lady Violet will want a tour of the gardens, I hope,” his lordship said, tucking my hand over his arm and escorting me up the two dozen terraced steps leading to a wide front portico. “You may rest your weary bones, St. Sevier, for I intend to take her ladyship captive.”
St. Sevier merely cocked his head, silently asking me if I was willing to be captured.
How well he knew me, already. “St. Sevier will find his way to your library, my lord, and plunder all of your botanical pamphlets and medical treatises. I will accompany you on a tour of the garden, the better to abet your truancy from correspondence, ledgers, and other duties.” Also to move after hours of drowsing in the coach.
“You have found me out,” his lordship said, patting my knuckles. “I do adore a discerning woman.”
He ushered us into the house, though house was too modest a term for the vast edifice his lordship called home. Our steps echoed in a soaring circular foyer, and afternoon light poured in through tall windows and a central skylight. White marble floors, alabaster statuary, and portraits in gilt frames all added to a sense of grandeur, though having grown up in a rambling country house myself, all I could think was that in winter, the foyer would be an icehouse.
And white floors showed every speck of dirt.
We commended St. Sevier into the keeping of a pretty, mobcapped housekeeper whose smile was genuinely cheerful. Perhaps the crisp northern air made the locals happy, just as London’s smoke made the capital’s denizens ill.
St. Sevier sent me a wink over his shoulder, and I was abandoned into Lord Rutland’s keeping. I should not have minded that I had no idea where Hugh would sleep or how to find him, but two years of mourning had left me with nervous tendencies. I thus admitted to a slight anxiety as I saw him disappear up a majestic curving staircase.
“Away with us,” Lord Rutland said, taking my hand and replacing it on his arm. “A soldier learns to treasure the fine weather, because the other kind inevitably comes around at the most inconvenient moment. The gardens are just beginning to bloom, and Athena and I are insufferably proud of them.”
“Do you miss army life?” I asked as he led me into a corridor that opened off the foyer. An abundance of windows—one might even say an extravagance of windows—filled even this part of the house with sunlight and warmth. The corridor begged for green plants and for the occasional napping cat, but instead held more art.
“I miss army life probably in the same way you miss the Season you made your come out. You have memories of that time gilded with a fond, inaccurate patina. You made great friendships that you will treasure into old age, and yet, you would not wish that same ordeal on anybody you cared for.”
He’d got the last part right.
“Tell me, Lady Violet, how does my friend St. Sevier honestly fare?”
The question took me somewhat aback, for I was not Hugh’s wife, nor even his official intended, that my counsel on the subject of his wellbeing should have been sought.
“He is well,” I said, which was true. Hugh enjoyed roaring good physical health and impressive animal spirits. “As far as I know, Monsieur is happily settled into civilian life.”
“His situation was difficult.” Lord Rutland ushered me through another door onto a sprawling back terrace. “He served well, despite all, and his facility with the French and Spanish languages was abundantly useful. Welcome to my garden, Lady Violet.”
I stepped out into the sunlight and was immediately aware of the scent of the forest rising up behind the house.
Forests in southern England tended to roll placidly along next to farmland, tamed in antiquity and put in service to civilization. Many had been reduced to mere home wood status, providing fuel, game, and timber for a specific estate.
In contrast to that sylvan domesticity, Rutland Wood manor was enthroned before high hills blanketed with tall conifers. The forest remained primeval here, dense, dark, and imposing, despite the grand gleaming manor seated on its border. Oaks and other hardwoods lined paths to the stables and outbuildings, but I had no doubt that given a few generations of freedom, the mountain forest would swallow every evidence of man’s encroachment.
Perhaps Rutland enjoyed the challenge of keeping nature battled into submission, for the struggle would be endless. Formal parterres were lined with brilliant beds of tulips in a repeating pattern of red, yellow, and white. A few precocious irises—alternating beds of purple and yellow—lined up along the central walkway, and faded daffodils had been subdued into tidy bundles along the peripheries.
“How delightful,” I said, resisting the urge to shake free of my escort and wander at will. His lordship would march me up and down the rows, I was certain. We’d move sedately and smiling all the while, but we’d travel the route of his choosing at the pace he set.
“Athena loves her garden,” Lord Rutland said, “and I love Athena, hence we indulge our gardeners.”
A profession of husbandly devotion ought to have charmed me. I instead found it a trifle gauche. A man should show the world he loved his lady rather than bandy the words so genially before a near stranger. Freddie had been full of adoring words as he’d slipped out the door to cavort with his mistresses.
Or perhaps a devoted husband ought to do both—make the professions and perform the devoted deeds. I was hardly a qualified judge of marital romance.
“Your garden reminds me of one facet of London life that pales compared to rural splendors,” I said. “And how I adore the scent of the pines. I’m put in mind of my recent stay in Perthshire.”
Though in central Scotland, the forest had a more stately quality, perhaps because the conifers were enormous and thus spaced more widely.
“Did you enjoy your time up north?” Lord Rutland asked, leading me down the steps.
“Very much. The people are quite friendly, the scenery breathtaking. I did not want to leave.”
St. Sevier had escorted me north to attend a friend’s wedding, and he and I had got more than we bargained for in terms of prenuptial intrigue. I had also seen, for the first time, the ancestral home of Sebastian MacHeath, Marquess of Dunkeld. Sebastian had been a dear acquaintance of my youth, but military service and misunderstandings had parted us.
I had only recently begun to rebuild my friendship with the marquess, and I hoped in future to continue with the project.
“I did not want to leave Rutland Wood,” my host said, starting me down a path along a south-facing fruit wall. “But my family has had military connections for generations, back to the original baronies and probably to Roman days. I could not fail my heritage, and I wasn’t about to let old Boney threaten all of this.”
Boney’s hopes of invading England had been dashed when Nelson had dispatched the French fleet at Trafalgar in 1805. British troops had not been dispatched to the Iberian Peninsula until several years later, and I was still hazy regarding the precise motivation for their deployment. Stopping the Corsican fiend had been the rhetoric of the day, but regaining access to Continental markets had likely been the true agenda.
Or perhaps, laying hold of French colonial riches had figured into the equation.
I did not raise those questions with my escort, knowing how military men could wax lyrical about battles, campaigns, and marches. My brother Felix had served, and from him, I’d gained a realistic and ugly picture of warfare.
“Your wife has a military background, does she not?” I asked.
“Born in an officer’s tent while her papa was on maneuvers,” Rutland said, bending to snap off a fading daffodil and toss it into the opposite lavender border. “Athena knows military history better than Oxford dons know their Latin, and she’s the equal of Wellington for planning a campaign. I sometimes think she married me so she could divert herself with the management of a hundred-odd inside servants and another sixty out of doors. We did not expect you quite so early in the day, and she will be mortified to have missed your arrival.”
