Chapter 11

Chapter 11

The following morning, the bitter February air nipped Ernest's cheeks as he stood with his hands clasped behind his back respectfully, looking at Lady Samantha. Her own cheeks were red with the cold, and she huddled deeper into the fur collar around her cloak.

"Farewell, Lady Samantha," he said, inclining his head. "I hope your journey back to your hosts is pleasant. And please know that Little Harkwell will welcome you anytime."

"Thank you, Lord Bannerdown, for both your kindness and hospitality." She curtsied, and beside her, her aunt did the same. Behind Ernest, he was aware of eyes on him. Lady Florence stood a further distance from her governess, and Miss Gundry herself watched the farewell exchange with a purposefully blank look that he could not make sense of.

"It is the least I can do," he told her gently. He had sought Miss Gundry's counsel last night, finding her strangely averted to giving it. Had he asked too much? Perhaps he had been selfish. He should have pressed harder on whatever had happened between Lady Florence and Miss Gundry. Perhaps then she may not have fled from him.

He could not stop thinking of the lingering silence that had settled around them in the empty hallway.

But now he focused his attention on Lady Samantha. "Do write to me, still," he told her. "I would like us to see one another again, for our time in Bath is concluded, and we return to London for the season."

The season, he thought. Where Lady Samantha shall be pushed right back into the marriage mart.

He saw a similar thought cross her mind, and her face flickered before she pushed a smile onto her face.

"I would like that, Lord Bannerdown."

She nodded once more at him in farewell before she turned to where a footman held open her carriage door and assisted her inside. Lady Samantha disappeared in a skirt of powder blue and a full cloak before her aunt followed, and the door was closed. Then the carriage pulled away with a shout from the driver, and Lord Bannerdown turned on his heel, walking back inside.

Inside, he walked down the hallway, unsure of whether he ought to return to his study or find Miss Gundry and find out what had ailed her the night before. But he did not get far when he heard a happy humming coming from the parlour. He paused, glancing in to find his mother at a writing desk, a smile on her face.

He lingered for too long, and she caught him, her face shifting into a wide smile. "Ah! Ernest. How was Lady Samantha upon her leaving?"

"Very well," he answered tersely. He still had not forgiven her for the argument they'd had the other night. "I would think that, as the one who invited Lady Samantha here, you would have wished to see her off."

"And interfere with your conversations with her? Do not be foolish." She gave him a light smile as if he was merely being chided for something small. "Do tell me, Ernest, what do you think of her now you have met her?"

"Mother," he warned quietly. "It seems you do not remember my thoughts from when Lady Samantha first arrived."

"Oh, that nonsense!" Lady Katherine laughed. "I do not pay it much mind, no. For I am your mother, and I must orchestrate the things you refuse to."

"Do not involve yourself in my personal life," he warned. "I told you once before, Mother, not to do so, and I meant it."

Her face blanched in shock and insult, her lashes blinking and her mouth working as she processed the insult of his words.

"Ernest," she said sharply, standing up from the desk. "I do not think you understand the situation. I truly do what I must because you refuse to. You are neglectful of your duties. We have a new life now, and I will not see you squander it with your ineptitude."

"My ineptitude!" he laughed, outraged. "Mother, you are a meddlesome woman, and we both know what this game is about. But Lady Samantha is still grieving her betrothed and—"

"They were never married," she hissed. "She lost a friend, is all. Her heart and hand are still available, Ernest, grief or not. Do you not think it dutiful to your friend to honour him in such a way that you would not see his former betrothed ruined by the grief? You would do him honour to court her so she would not suffer the consequences of almost being widowed at such a young age."

"Mother," he hissed.

"Heed me," she spat. "You do not take your earldom seriously, and it is about time that you do. For that, you will need a wife and an heir."

"You cannot possibly think Lady Sam—"

"That is precisely what I think!" Lady Katherine argued. "For what other option do you have? You refuse to mingle with anybody at social events, and you spend all your other time either in the hospital or with your cousin's governess." She moaned in distress, pressing her hand to her head. "You are causing me alarm, Ernest. People are already gossiping."

"Only because you invite them to watch me try to manage this earldom like a performing animal at a circus!"

"They pity you."

"And I pity the young girl who lost her family only to watch relatives she did not know parade in here and take over her home!" Ernest shouted. "I will not accept this title with the seriousness you wish me to do so because I had my own life before tragedy struck the Bannerdowns. I will not give that life up."

"But you must!" she raged. "And if you do not step up to be the guardian of Bannerdown and take your title seriously, then I will."

Ernest's mouth parted in surprise. Another side of his mother was rearing its head, and he could not believe her bold proclamation. Then again, was that not what she wanted? To be the centre of attention, to have decisions put down solely for her to make.

"Mother, what truly happened?" he asked quietly. She reared back, surprised by his question.

"What—what do you mean?"

"Why did my father remain in London? What happened between the two of you? Do not evade me this time."

Lady Katherine paused. He rarely saw his mother nervous and to see it now was quite an image. But she was, and his mother was good at turning every inch of vulnerability into something with an edge, a sharpness that could be cruel. It was her way of enduring.

She lifted her chin, sniffling. "Your father," she said, her voice dropping into a sneer that he did not understand, "did not wish to ascend into the Ton, even at the cost of our marriage. That is how much I mean to him."

"And how much the Ton means to you," Ernest murmured under his breath, shaking his head. For his father did not want the Ton, but his mother had so easily walked away from the marriage, too. "I hope this lavish house comforts your upset over that, Mother."

"Ernest!" she admonished, but he did not care. He turned on his heel and was already walking out of the parlour by the time she called his name for the second time. He could only think of his father, a hard-working medic, a man who had inspired Ernest all his life, being alone back home in a London townhouse far less grand than anything anyone of the Ton owned. A man who had been gracious and giving—a man who was comfortable earning his own way with something practical and helpful.

A man who did not seem very suited to Lady Katherine at all, now that Ernest thought about it. Perhaps their marriage truly had come to blows over the difference in satisfaction in society.

***

Sitting in his study, Ernest could not help shaking his head as he leafed through paperwork. Ledgers after ledgers, letters of promises and business proposals, deeds, and written affairs of the estate. Employment records, dowry reports for Lady Florence, and endless information swam before Ernest's eyes.

The former earl and Matthew, Ernest's cousin and Lady Florence's father, had left him many remnants of Bannerdown to sort through. For a moment, Ernest had a terrible thought that, even in the time before their deaths, they could have had some organization. And then he chided himself for such a selfish thought.

Matthew had been his best friend and the former heir. Despite his father—Ernest's uncle—disapproving of Ernest's own parents, the two cousins had got along and became fast friends. They had been more like siblings than even the former earl and Lady Katherine. And they were true siblings, although it was clear they had both wished otherwise.

Now Ernest sat where his uncle should have been, and then Matthew, and he should have come and gone to Bannerdown as a guest, visiting, attending parties. Instead, he was the man of the house, the guardian, and the host of those parties.

He despised it, and the guilt ate away at him as time slipped away from him the more he read the figures and drowned himself in this work so he would not have to think of his mother's threats. For he believed her. He knew that he had a duty to the title and house. He knew that the nobility came with certain requirements, and one of those was to produce an heir to pass everything onto.

"Lest it go to another commoner," he muttered to himself, laughing humourlessly. Despite his mother growing up in the Ton, she had absconded it and left it to marry Ernest's father, a commoner, and it was clear she regretted such a decision. It was only this luck that brought them back to her childhood home, taking the place that her brother and his wife should have had.

But Ernest had been a commoner with his father, and he had been happy with his life, really. He had been in awe of Matthew's life as they grew up, but he had been comfortable, too, wanting to follow in his father's footsteps of becoming a medic.

"Well, Matthew," he muttered, thinking of his late cousin. "I do not understand what I am to do in such a situation. It should be you here. I wish we were boys again, climbing the apple tree in the orchard."

The ghosts in Ernest's life lingered long enough. He did not need to encourage them.

And he was prevented from doing so by a knock on the door. A footman opened the study door, and Ernest finally let himself look up from the ledgers.

"Mr Graham Courtenay, Lord Bannerdown," he announced. Ernest nodded his acceptance to see his friend.

In strode Graham, his grey-streaked hair pushed back from his forehead, and Ernest swore he looked less fatigued than he had last month when they had stood before the memorial. He looked less … old. For Graham was not old in the slightest, but Ernest thought the battle had aged him.

"Good afternoon," he said, inclining his head. "I hope you do not mind me intruding—"

"Graham, you are my best friend," he said. "We have been through too much together for you to still think of yourself as an intruder."

"Yes, well, we are not the same men who signed up for the king's army together, are we?" Graham pointedly looked around at the study, polished and graceful.

"No," Ernest said slowly. "We are not."

"I have come to speak with you about Lady Samantha," his friend said, settling down in the chair opposite Ernest's desk. "I am … worried for her. I am worried for what she might endure come the social season."

"As am I," Ernest sighed. "She is still young, yet grief has aged her. It will likely serve her well, but it could make her a target for the … older gentlemen who think only of needing an heir."

"They will not treasure her," Graham said, his voice quiet, resigned. He shook his head. "She must meet a respectable man. I trust that her aunt will present her only to the best men suited for her."

"Mrs Brooks is an older woman herself," Ernest worried. "It is more likely that she is ready to see Lady Samantha married off to the first suitor who glances her way, no matter his age. She will ensure she is taken care of, I am sure, but only financially. She might not give the extra time to think about the man himself." He shuddered, thinking of the young, soft-handed Lady Samantha, in the throes of her grief, married off to a man old enough to be her grandfather.

It happened, but he did not wish it to happen to her. Archibald had been older but still only in his thirties.

"I wish I could attend these social events," Graham muttered. "I have no rank to speak of, but I have enough prestige that should allow me entry. But alas. You shall have to watch over her from afar, Ernest."

"Come the social season, Graham, I shall have my own young ward to watch over." He gave his friend a stern look. "Lady Florence shall be ready to enter the marriage mart come the spring. I shall not have the time to take care of two ladies who should not be my responsibility." He cringed at the harshness of his words.

"Of course," Graham muttered. "How could I forget? Lady Florence is glued so permanently to the side of her governess that I almost forget she is ready to find a suitor. But I do not mind, for her governess is rather beautiful, is she not? And very well-read, according to Lawrence Kent."

Ernest drew up sharply. "Who is that?"

"He owns the Haberdash Bookshop." The chairman lifted a brow. "Why are you so upset over it?"

"I am not upset."

"It sounds like you are. I make one mention of Miss Gundry's beauty and—"

"Do not pursue her, Graham," Ernest said, his words half a sigh and half a growl. It was not quite a warning but not quite a tired resignation, either. His emotions mingled and tangled in his mind, and he did not know how to make sense of them.

"I—I only mean that she must remain focused on Lady Florence," he quickly amended when Graham looked mildly offended and shocked. "Especially if Lady Florence is to find her own way without a governess in the coming months, Miss Gundry shall need all her focus on those last preparations."

Graham stepped back, and his mouth pulled into a tight line. "Ah." He nodded slowly. "I see."

"What?" Ernest snapped.

"I shall not pursue Miss Gundry," Graham conceded. "But I also did not say that I would. I merely complimented her, and you jumped to a conclusion based on nothing but … perhaps your own jealousy?"

"That is preposterous," Ernest muttered. "What possessed you to say that?"

"I am merely reading you." Graham lifted his chin as if knowing he was right. "You wish to keep the governess and me apart, but are your intentions so pure, Ernest? I do not believe so. I do not believe it is only for Lady Florence's benefit, for she is a bright young lady, brighter than most, and Miss Gundry is excellent in her role. She makes a fine governess, and I believe you insult her by insinuating her focus from her employment would be swayed by me."

"Graham, do not speak such nonsense. Of course, my intentions are pure."

Graham did not look convinced, but Ernest still convinced himself of his own words.

Miss Gundry was wonderful, and he found that he had grown fond of her and always searched for her in every room he thought she would be in. But he cherished and liked her too much to put her in his mother's line of fire. If his mother were already threatening Ernest, then she would know no boundaries when it came to threatening Miss Gundry.

"How about we call upon refreshments?" Graham suggested. "It seems your day has taken a toll on you."

"That is a good idea," Ernest muttered, but his mind was still on Miss Gundry and how he might protect her from his mother's vicious gossip.