The Regency Season: Hidden Desires. Anne Herries

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      ‘I do not wish to disoblige you, Grandfather,’ Adam said, ‘yet I would crave your indulgence a little longer. I would at least marry a young woman I can admire if nothing more.’

      ‘Well, well,’ the earl said tolerantly. ‘There is time enough yet, but I do not have many years left to me. I should like to know the estate and the succession were safe.’

      Adam had left his grandfather’s estate and journeyed to London. It was his first appearance in the drawing rooms of society for a while. He had been away for some years, like many young men now returned from the wars. Adam knew that several of his friends were seeking young women of fortune. His was not the only estate to be encumbered with mortgages and in danger of sinking into extinction.

      Had he seen a young lady who caught his attention he would have done his best to court her, even though the whole idea filled him with repugnance. To be seeking a wife for her fortune was not what Adam would have wished for given his choice. Indeed, he had not yet made up his mind to it. He had been invited to stay at Ravenscar for Mark’s wedding and would do so, but before that he hoped to have some sport. There was an important meeting at Newmarket the following week and it was Adam’s intention to attend.

      A wry smile touched his mouth. If he could but place a lucky bet and win the stake he needed to improve his grandfather’s fortunes, it would save the need for a distasteful decision. He was about to leave the ballroom when he saw a young woman regarding him from the far end of the room. Her expression was one of extreme disapproval. For a moment he wondered what he could have done to upset her—to his certain knowledge he had never met the young lady.

      He had time to notice that she had particularly fine eyes and a soft mouth before she turned away and left the room. She was not one of the notable heiresses pointed out to him that evening by his obliging friends. By the plain look of her attire and her lack of ostentatious jewellery, he doubted that she was one of those rare females. However, her reddish-brown hair and delicate complexion was out of the ordinary. She certainly had the beauty he’d jokingly demanded that his heiress ought to have and there had been intelligence in those eyes—but she probably did not have a fortune.

      So much the better, if Adam had his way, but he had promised his grandfather that he would at least attempt to attach an heiress. Glancing at the least displeasing of the young ladies he knew to be on the catch for a title, Adam breathed deeply and began to swathe a path through the crush of people.

      The least he could do was to ask Miss Maddingly to dance...

      * * *

      ‘You cannot leave before Lady Braxton’s dance,’ Mrs Hastings said firmly. ‘Your friends can certainly spare you a few days longer. You will oblige me in this, Jenny. Your uncle will send you down to Dawlish in his own carriage at the end of the week.’

      ‘But, Aunt, if I leave tomorrow I may travel with Lucy and save my uncle the expense.’

      ‘You speak as if your uncle would grudge the expense,’ her aunt said and shook her head. ‘I know you cannot be so very ungrateful as to refuse me this request, Jenny. Neither your uncle or I have asked anything of you before this—and I really think you must attend the dance, for my word was given.’

      Jenny gave up the argument. She knew Aunt Martha would end in a fit of vexation if she refused to accept her wish upon the matter. Much as she would have liked to travel with her friend, she could not insist on it—though her uncle’s lumbering travelling coach was not at all comfortable. It would have been far better to travel post, but the cost was exorbitant and her uncle would never approve when he had what he considered a perfectly good coach.

      Mr Keith Hastings’s own coach had been sold along with many of his personal possessions. Jenny had tried to protest that such stringent economy was unnecessary. Papa might have lost money, but there was surely still more than sufficient for Jenny’s needs? However, Uncle Rex liked to practise economy and could not be brought to accept that there was no need to pinch pennies. It was a matter over which Jenny’s father had always been at odds with his brother.

      ‘Your uncle is a good man, Jenny love,’ he’d once told her. ‘But he is a regular nip-farthing and will not spend a penny if a ha’penny will do.’

      Jenny had laughed. Papa had perhaps been a little over-generous with his money and that might be why her uncle was determined to make economies. She was not perfectly certain of how Papa had left things, for she’d been content to leave business to her uncle—though it was perhaps time that she had a word with Mr Nodgrass. Papa’s lawyer could tell her where she stood financially and what had happened to Mama’s jewels. Had they been sold to pay debts? Her uncle had mumbled on about something of the kind, leaving Jenny with the idea that she had very little to call her own—which made her all the more indebted to her uncle for taking her in.

      However, she had only a string of seed pearls of her own and if any of Mama’s jewels remained she was determined to lay claim to them. Jenny was almost nineteen and Papa had been dead for a year. It was certainly time that she discovered exactly where she stood.

      Her mind made up, she decided to call at her lawyer’s office the very next day.

      * * *

      ‘Come in, come in, Miss Hastings,’ Mr Nodgrass greeted her kindly, but with some surprise the next morning. ‘There was no need to put yourself to so much trouble, for had you asked I should have been pleased to call on you at your uncle’s house.’

      ‘I hoped to see you alone, sir,’ Jenny said as she was ushered into his private office. ‘My uncle was unclear about the state of Papa’s affairs. I wished to know if any of Mama’s jewels were still available to me?’

      His thick eyebrows climbed. ‘Certainly Mrs Hastings’s jewellery is available. It sits in my vault awaiting your instructions, Miss Jenny—if I may call you that?’

      ‘Yes, sir, of course. I had no idea the jewellery was here. Why have I not been informed?’

      ‘Your aunt considered that you were too young to wear any of the more expensive pieces and your uncle thought them safer in my vault. However, I know there are several small pieces suitable for a young lady and I wondered why you did not avail yourself of them.’

      ‘I should certainly like to do so. I am going to stay with friends soon and would like something pretty to wear at a wedding. If I might see what there is, sir?’

      ‘Of course.’ Mr Nodgrass pulled a bell-rope and gave the instructions to an underling. ‘You may take everything with you—or as much as you consider suitable to your present way of life.’

      ‘Thank you, sir. Perhaps while I am here you would acquaint me with my circumstances. I know that Papa lost a considerable sum of money at the tables just before he died in that driving accident—but do I have any money of my own?’

      * * *

      Jenny was thoughtful as she left the lawyer’s office an hour later. In her reticule there were six items of pretty but not particularly valuable jewellery—things that her aunt might easily have secured for her use before this had she been bothered. Distressed by her beloved father’s death, Jenny had not thought about the jewels or her situation for some time. Mr Nodgrass had not been able to give her full details, for the accounts had been placed in a safe and the clerk had mislaid the keys. However, he had told her that her situation was far from desperate, and he could make her a small quarterly allowance if she wished for it, though much of her inheritance was invested either in property or shares.

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