Miss Verey’s Proposal Read online

  Miss Verey’s Proposal

  Nicola Cornick

  Alex, the Duke of Delahaye, is determined to see his younger brother safely married to provide the necessary heir. Unfortunately the chosen bride, Miss Jane Verey, is less than amenable!

  Nicola Cornick

  Miss Verey’s Proposal

  The third book in the Suffolk series, 2000

  To my family

  Prologue

  ‘Say you’ll do it, Jane! Oh, please say you will!’

  Miss Sophia Marchment leant forward, blue eyes pleading, golden ringlets a-tremble.

  Jane Verey bit her lip, looking troubled. ‘Oh, Sophy, I would truly love to, but-’

  But the truth was that Miss Verey liked her food all too well and her friend was suggesting the unthinkable. Sophia’s face fell a little.

  ‘But, Jane, it is such an adventure! If you go to bed without supper and do not look behind you, you will dream of your future husband!’ Sophia clapped her hands. ‘Why, to my mind it is worth any amount of food!’

  Jane thought longingly of the fresh loaf she had watched Cook bake only that day, the newly churned butter and the thick slices of ham that had been steeped in ale. Her mouth watered. No, it was impossible…

  Sophia was pushing the book of legends towards her. The binding was coming loose and there was a dusty smell and crackling paper that implied great antiquity. Reluctantly, Jane peered at the faded words.

  ‘…for if you go supperless to bed on St Agnes Eve and take care not to look behind, you will conjure dreams of your future husband…’

  The bare branches of the oak outside Jane’s window tapped impatiently on the glass. She jumped. Sophia was leaning forward, her golden curls gleaming in the candlelight.

  ‘You see! Tonight is St Agnes Eve! Oh, Jane, do not condemn me to do this alone!’

  Jane could foresee all manner of practical difficulties. How was one to close the bedroom door without looking behind? How was a dream to be interpreted if it contained not one man, but two-or even three? She was about to confront Sophia with these problems when her friend spoke again.

  ‘Molly, the second parlourmaid, swears that it is true, Jane! Twice now she has tested the legend and on both occasions she dreamed of Gregory Pullman, the farrier, so she knows it must be true!’

  Jane could not see the logic of this. The last time she had seen the farrier he had been attempting to tumble a maid behind the stables and the girl had certainly not been Molly.

  ‘Does Gregory realise yet that he is to marry Molly?’ she inquired practically. ‘It might be twenty years or more before he grasps the truth, by which time she will have become a sour old maid! And is this not the same girl who washed her face in dew on a May morning, swearing it would make her beautiful, then caught the cowpox-?’

  Sophia dismissed this with a wave of one white hand. ‘Oh, Jane, how you do run on! It will do you no harm to miss your supper just this once.’ Her blue eyes considered her friend’s more-than-ample form. ‘And you may dream of some desperately handsome man! Oh, please…’

  Jane’s stomach made a monstrous rumbling noise. To starve herself voluntarily seemed an intolerable thought, but Sophia was looking quite wretched.

  ‘Oh, very well,’ she capitulated reluctantly, reflecting that Sophia would never know if she got up in the middle of the night and went in search of some food.

  Three hours later, Sophia had returned to Penistone Manor and Jane had trailed off to bed, looking very sorry for herself, but remembering not to look behind her.

  ‘It’s not natural, madam,’ Cook complained to Lady Verey. ‘A growing girl of fifteen should not be refusing her food like that! Why, she’ll waste away!’

  ‘Jane’s growing in more than one direction!’ Simon, her elder brother, said heartlessly but with some truth. ‘She can live off her fat for a while!’

  In the middle of the night Jane awoke, suffering from huge hunger pangs. The wind had increased whilst it was dark and small flurries of rain hit the glass in the windows. Disappointingly, Jane could not remember having a single dream, despite the fact that she had followed her instructions exactly. But perhaps, on a full stomach, she might have more success…

  She slid out of bed, shivering in her thin cotton nightdress. She almost changed her mind when she thought of the warm, downy nest of sheets and blankets she had just left. The door creaked a little on its hinges as she started to open it and the dark passageway stretched away towards the top of the stairs. Jane had never been a superstitious child, but suddenly the old house of Ambergate and its shadowy corners seemed unfamiliar and unfriendly. Jane braced herself. She was about to push the door wide and take her courage in both hands when she heard a step at the top of the stairs.

  A man was just turning the corner and coming down the corridor towards her. Jane shrank back with a gasp. The door was only open a crack, but through the narrow aperture she could see him clearly, for he carried a candle in one hand. She knew that she had never seen him before in her life, for she would most certainly have remembered. He could not be a servant and, for a moment, she wondered if he was in fact an apparition conjured up by a fevered mind that had been weakened by lack of food.

  The first impression that Jane had was that he seemed very tall in the flickering candlelight and was clothed with an informality suitable only to his own dressing-room. His cravat hung loose and his white shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, revealing the strong brown column of his throat. His pantaloons clung to muscular thighs and the candlelight reflected on the mirror-polish of his Hessians. Jane caught her breath, staring in strange fascination. He was very dark, with silky black hair that seemed to gleam in the faint light. One dark lock fell across his forehead and he flicked it back with an impatient hand. His black brows were drawn together in a frown that made the saturnine face seem even more forbidding. Then those dark eyes turned thoughtfully towards Jane’s door and she shrank back even further into the shadows, convinced that he had seen her. For a long moment he seemed to hesitate, staring directly at her door, before disappearing. There was no sound but for the soft click of a door closing further down the corridor.

  Some ten minutes later, Jane found that she was able to move again and dived into the refuge of her bed, all pangs of hunger banished by fright. It was even longer before she was able to sleep, convinced that she had definitely seen an intruder or a ghost and reluctant to leave her room for help against either. Eventually she fell into an uneasy sleep and dreamed of the dark stranger who stalked the corridors of Ambergate.

  When she woke in the morning, both her common sense and her appetite were restored.

  ‘Why did you not tell me that we had a house guest, Mama?’ she inquired, at breakfast, helping herself to two portions of kedgeree. ‘I saw a gentleman in the corridor last night and was almost caught in my shift!’

  Lady Verey exchanged a look with her husband, who cleared his throat but said nothing.

  ‘We have no guests, my love,’ Lady Verey said, giving her daughter a sweet smile. ‘You must have been dreaming. And if you will eat cheese before you go to bed…’

  ‘I had no supper last night and I did not dream it!’ Jane declared stoutly, but she knew she was fighting a losing battle. Her mother’s face wore the gentle but stubborn smile that meant that a topic was closed. Her father rustled his newspaper loudly.

  ‘Always has her nose in a book,’ he said shortly. ‘Mistake. Shouldn’t let the girl read. Stands to reason.’

  Lady Verey turned her sweet smile on her spouse. ‘Just so, my dear. Do you go into Penistone today? Perhaps Jane could accompany you-I have an errand for her with Mrs. Marchment…’

  A meaningful glance passed between husband and wife. �
��Simon is out riding already,’ Lady Verey continued contentedly. ‘He will be gone hours, I dare guess…’

  Thus it was that neither Jane nor her brother saw the lone horseman who made his way down the lime avenue some two hours later. And though the servants talked amongst themselves, they all heeded Lady Verey’s stricture that no one was to tell Jane or Simon of the visitor on pain of dismissal.

  ‘What did you dream about, Jane?’ Sophia demanded, when Lord Verey had conveyed her friend to the Manor in the gig. She did not wait for a reply. ‘I had the most extraordinary dream about a young man-he was so handsome, fair haired and blue eyed, and most dashing. I declare…’ she clasped her hands together ‘…he must be my future husband!’

  ‘I did not dream,’ Jane said firmly. ‘I had no dreams all night long.’ She resolutely pushed away the image of the man she had seen in the corridor. She was certain that she had been awake when she first saw him; though she had dreamed of him later, surely that could not count. Sophia’s face fell.

  ‘No dreams? But, Jane, how dreadful! That must mean you are destined to be an old maid!’

  Jane shrugged her plump shoulders, a mannerism that her mother deplored. ‘I am persuaded that it would be better for me not to marry,’ she said, her mouth full of Mrs. Marchment’s cake and jam. ‘I should not make anyone a conformable wife.’

  Sophia was on the verge of loyally disagreeing when something stopped her. There was no doubt that Jane was the best friend ever, but she was not like anyone else.

  ‘Perhaps you might meet a gentleman willing to overlook your odd ideas-’ She broke off, blushing a little. ‘Oh, Jane, I am certain that there must be a gentleman suitable for you!’

  Jane did not bother to argue. She already understood that it would only make Sophia uncomfortable if she insisted on being different. Besides, her friend’s next words summed up Jane’s dilemma and there was no arguing with them.

  ‘Oh, Jane,’ Sophia said sadly, ‘you have to marry! You must! For what else would you do?’

  Chapter One

  Four years later

  It was late at night when Miss Jane Verey’s laggardly suitor finally arrived at Ambergate. Dinner had been held for hours until Cook had complained bitterly that the sauce béarnaise had curdled and the pheasant compote had dried out and stuck to the serving dish. With a sigh and a glance at the clock, Lady Verey had had the food brought in and had eaten alone with her daughter, both of them uncomfortable in the unaccustomed finery donned especially for their visitor.

  After dinner, they had sat for another hour in virtual silence, broken only by Lady Verey’s plaintive cry of, ‘But why does he not come? I am certain that he said the fifteenth! Perhaps he has had an accident on the road…’

  Jane had fidgeted with her needlework, but had said nothing at all. There seemed to be little to say. After two months of vague promises and broken arrangements, Lord Philip Delahaye had still not honoured their agreement and met his chosen bride. He seemed a reluctant lover indeed, which sat ill with the information Jane had been given that the Delahaye match, as well as having her late father’s blessing, was Lord Philip’s most earnest desire.

  Eventually, when Jane’s yawns had become too pronounced to be ignored and the clock had chimed twelve, Lady Verey patted her daughter’s cheek.

  ‘You had best retire for the night, Jane. I shall wait up in case Lord Philip comes. Such disappointment is hard to bear, I know, but perhaps the morning will bring better news.’

  Jane kissed her mother and went off to bed. She did not feel it necessary to explain that her disappointment amounted to very little at all. She had been persuaded to receive Lord Philip’s addresses since it had been made very plain to her that they were now quite poor and that her father’s dying wish was that her future be secured. Her brother Simon, the new Lord Verey, had been fighting with Wellington’s armies and had not been heard of for a twelvemonth. Ambergate was falling about their ears and the servants stayed only out of loyalty. It was a melancholy picture.

  It is not that I do not wish to marry, Jane thought, as she climbed the stairs in the candlelight, for I know I have very little choice. It is just that I imagined-hoped-that it might be so very different…And she thought of her henwitted friend Sophia Marchment, and could not help smiling. Sophia had imagined herself in love with no less than four young gentlemen in the last six months, but then she had remembered that none of them resembled the young man she had dreamed of so long ago on St Agnes Eve…

  Jane had no illusions that her marriage would be other than a business arrangement, a matter for sound common sense, and yet part of her wished for, if not a romantic passion, at least a mutual regard.

  If I can just like him, she thought, then matters need not be so bad. And I hope that I do like him, for Mama can be most determined and I know that she means for the match to be made…

  She stood before her bedroom mirror for a moment and wondered whether Lord Philip would like her. So familiar was she with her own features that Jane could scarcely see their charm. She decided that she looked rather like a cat, though admittedly a sleeker creature than the mangy tom that patrolled their stables. Her face had lost all its childhood fat and was now almost triangular, tapering from wide-set hazel eyes to a pointed little chin. Her mother was always telling her that she had the Verey nose, a delicate little projection that always looked weak on the face of Jane’s male ancestors but suited her own proportions far better. The whole was framed by thick black hair as dark as night.

  Jane sighed and started to undress for bed. She could see little to commend herself and did not recognise her own intriguing mixture of innocence and allure. She donned her cotton nightdress hastily, for the spring evenings were still chilly and Ambergate had many draughts. Her best dress of slightly faded white silk was laid carefully aside, looking as forlorn as Jane felt.

  It was five minutes after Jane had slipped into her bed that the front door bell pealed, harsh and loud in the night. It rang once, then several more times, with irritable repetition.

  A loud male voice shouted, ‘Deuce take it! Is the whole house asleep? Hello there! Wake up, I say!’

  Jane slid out of bed and tiptoed along the corridor to the wide landing at the top of the stairs. She could see Bramson, the butler, hastily shrugging himself into his coat as he hurried to the door. The old man was almost visibly shaking at the shock of the sudden arrival and all the noise, and Jane could not but wish Lord Philip would leave the bell alone. The continuous jangling was giving her a headache.

  Lady Verey herself now came running out of the parlour just as Bramson swung the door open. It was clear to Jane that her mother must have fallen asleep in front of the fire, for her coiffure had started to come down on one side and there was a vivid red mark on her cheek where it must have been pressed against the side of the chair. She had had no time to tidy herself and was straightening her dress with nervous fingers. Jane’s heart went out to her as she saw the anxious look that creased Lady Verey’s face. She was heartbreakingly eager for the visit to be a success.

  ‘What the devil do you mean by keeping me standing out there in the cold!’ The same loud, masculine voice demanded wrathfully, as Lord Philip stepped into the hall. ‘You!’ He pointed at Bramson. ‘See to the stabling of my horses! They are worn to the bone by these devilish bad roads! And you…’ he turned towards Lady Verey ‘…kindly take me to your mistress!’

  With horror, Jane realised that he had mistaken her mother for the housekeeper. Fortunately, Lady Verey’s good manners, if not Lord Philip’s, were up to the occasion.

  She dropped a slight curtsy.

  ‘How do you do, sir. I am Clarissa Verey. I am sorry to hear you have had so poor a journey. Would you care for some refreshment before you retire?’

  Jane waited to hear Lord Philip apologise for his late arrival, his poor manners or perhaps both. Instead, he looked down his nose as though he could not quite believe that the fright who was addressing him could rea
lly be the mistress of the house. He gave a slight bow. ‘How do you do, ma’am. Some dinner would be excellent.’

  ‘The servants are all abed,’ Lady Verey said, colouring a little under Lord Philip’s critical scrutiny. ‘I hope a cold supper in your room will suit your lordship…’

  Lord Philip gave a sigh. ‘I suppose that will suffice! What extraordinary hours you do keep in the country, ma’am! Why, if this were London, we would only now be sitting down to our second course! Quite extraordinary!’

  Jane shrank back into the shadows as her mother steered their guest towards the staircase, but she had ample chance to see Lord Philip’s rather disparaging look as he took in the old-fashioned furnishings and the threadbare carpet. Something close to fury rose in her. She could see that Lady Verey was both offended and upset, but was bravely trying to maintain a flow of pleasantries as they mounted the stairs.

  Lord Philip, however, was only concerned with the arrangements for his luggage and turned to shout over his shoulder at the footman, ‘See to it that someone brings my bags up carefully, man! The last time I stayed in the country some dolt of a servant managed to ruin half my cravats with his man-handling!’

  For a moment Jane indulged in the satisfying thought of kicking Lord Philip’s bags straight down the stairs, then she dived for her bedroom door as her mother ushered him down the corridor. She huddled under her covers, knees drawn up to her chin, and thought about what she had just seen and heard. How could this be her intended husband, this arrogant, boorish man who had made his contempt for country manners and country living so obvious in the space of only a few minutes? How could he humiliate his hostess so? His rudeness and scorn were not to be tolerated!

  Her thoughts were distracted by the rattle of a tray and the chink of china. Lady Verey had sent hotfoot to the kitchens and even now she was labouring along the corridor, weighed down with food. Jane slipped out of bed again, opened her door a crack and pressed her ear to the gap. She heard the door of the green bedroom open and Lord Philip drawl in a tone very different from the one last used,