Page 10 of The Gentlewoman Companion (The Gentlewoman #4)

Chapter Four

H alverton reread the latest letter from Lord Tilney, which described an offer from their colleague Lord Denton: If Lord Halverton voted to increase taxes on imports from small merchants, which would benefit the East India Company’s trading efforts, Denton would lend his support to any two bills Halverton chose.

Judging his father’s documents, this sort of exchange of favors was a common practice in which his father had also engaged.

Lord Denton was persuasive. He held a considerable stake in the East India Company, but he argued that support from parliament was necessary to keep a strong English presence abroad, else the Dutch or—heaven forbid—the French might take the lead in trade.

Though the East India Company helped England maintain international dominance, Halverton wondered how the taxes affected small merchants or their consumers.

Tilney’s final paragraph promised the deal was reasonable and beneficial.

Halverton didn’t understand the issue or economic factors well enough to choose.

Halverton sighed. He held a degree in law, a subject that appealed to his sense of justice.

The compromise politics demanded, the denial of personal standards, left him discontented.

However, it did not seem his father had shared those concerns, as his letters were replete with similar negotiations.

Surely Halverton was green, ignorant, and na?ve.

Once he was seasoned, would he understand the necessity of compromise?

He shoved the letter into the desk drawer and slammed it closed. A brief walk would clear his head.

Outside, vast green stretched before him, punctuated in even intervals with marble statues and crowned with a long, rectangular pool. He turned his back to it and headed for the rock garden, a favorite childhood haunt, where he’d spent hours lumbering over boulders.

He crossed over a stream and onto a gravel path, where he heard his mother’s laughter from the other side of a tall hedge. He paused.

“Louisa!” Mirth stunted her words. “I cannot.”

“Watch me first,” Miss Thorpe said.

He peered into the alley that ran alongside the maze garden.

His mother clutched her stomach in silent laughter while Miss Thorpe bent in half, her hair almost brushing the ground.

She lifted her arms up then toward herself, propelling a ball between her legs toward a circle etched in the gravel.

She stood and whooped when it bowled through.

What the devil?

His mother took a few loud, calming breaths before playing the same way, successfully landing the mark.

Miss Thorpe shouted, “Well, done, my lady!” She retrieved both balls. “What shall we try next?”

“A wind up?”

“Show me.”

His mother rotated her arm in large circles before letting the ball free. It tumbled forward, bouncing left of the mark. Miss Thorpe copied his mother’s technique, sending her ball into a hedge. The ladies looked at one another and giggled. He had never seen his mother behave so.

The balls and mallets for pall mall lay to one side, but that was not the game they played. “What is this?” he asked.

Both women jumped and turned to him, their eyes wide.

“Oh!” Miss Thorpe said.

“Would you care to join us?” His mother rested her hand on Miss Thorpe’s arm, and they began cackling again.

“Mother, are you all right?” He approached, searching for signs of intoxication.

They calmed their laughter. “We’re testing alternate methods for projecting a ball,” his mother said, seeming perfectly sober.

“You must join us,” Miss Thorpe added. “We’re running short of ideas.”

However strange the scene, one thing was clear: his mother glowed.

Not since his boyhood had she been so carefree.

Perhaps this companion of hers was exactly what she needed.

He examined Miss Thorpe. She, too, was radiant.

With her arm entwined with his mother’s, they leaned against one another, flushed and grinning. Almost like mother and daughter.

“I presume this game is an invention of Miss Thorpe’s.” It must have been. The real question was, how had she persuaded his mother to play along?

“She has the most wonderful ideas.” His mother squeezed her companion’s arm.

“My brother Charles and I used to play unconventional pall mall when the usual method lost interest.” She waved a hand. “In truth, I was never any good. But if you play, I hope I will not be the only one missing the mark.”

This was the sort of game he and Hugh might invent, and if it brought a smile to his mother’s face, he would participate. He took a ball and faced the target.

“How should I proceed?” he asked.

“You must choose a new method of pitching,” his mother said. “Then we copy your style, so remember our skirts.”

“May I use the mallet?”

“Yes, but not in the customary way.”

He took a mallet from the stand. “Clear back.” He spun in a circle three times before lobbing the ball down the alley, far beyond the hoop.

“You needn’t parade your strength.” Miss Thorpe laughed.

“I must fetch my ball and will get yours as well, my lord, my lady.” In graceful, fluid steps, she ran down the alley and back, carrying three balls.

She secured her own mallet, spun thrice, and hit the ball over the hedge.

She and his mother found this hilarious.

The sophisticated Lady Halverton took Miss Thorpe’s mallet and performed the exercise with more success than her predecessors but with just as much absurdity.

Halverton surprised himself by snorting and was rewarded with his mother’s teasing nudge to his shoulder.

A great warmth spread through his chest until it burned in his nose. He rubbed it away.

They kicked the ball, threw it with their arms stretched like a bird, tossed it with their eyes closed, and flung it with their left arms. As Halverton played and watched, he took to Miss Thorpe, whose interactions with his mother were both lively and considerate.

He almost forgave her for jumping the horse.

In due course, Lady Halverton signaled an end to their game. “I’ve stirred up quite an appetite.” His mother pulled out her watch. “It’s nearly four.”

Four? Lured by laughter, he’d idled away his afternoon. He could not allow such a thing to happen again. “May I escort you back?”

“No, but send us tea, if you please.”

After he returned to the house and sent tea to his mother, he sat at his desk and pulled the unanswered letter from the drawer again.

The enjoyment he’d found in Miss Thorpe’s game vanished into the sharp corners of Tilney’s script.

His lot was not one of diversion. He must discipline himself, leave behind superfluous pleasures, and complete all that his position required.

During his tour of the continent, Halverton had only once received a letter from his father.

It had begged his return home. Instead of heeding his father’s request, he’d gone to Greece, promising that after seeing that country, he would sail for England.

Eight months later, word reached Halverton in Crete that his father had died.

The letter had been two months old, and Halverton had required as many months to journey home.

Like Lord Tilney, his father had been a proud Tory, and Halverton knew enough about his father’s party to recognize that Lord Denton’s proposal aligned with the party’s principles.

He would not fail his father by voting contrary to the views their family had held for generations. But what would he request in return?

He thought of the woman selling flowers, the home she must return to, the children she may not be able to feed. His mind had fixated on her and her haunting poverty again and again during the last weeks.

Halverton wanted to live in a nation that valued compassion.

The speech he was preparing regarding the Foundling Hospital was slowly taking shape as he learned more about the institution.

Over the past four years, an overwhelming demand for asylum had forced the governors to allow general admission.

During that time, more than four thousand children had entered to claim the Hospital as home, depleting resources until the establishment had found it almost impossible to meet the needs of the children in their care.

Perhaps there was something Lord Denton could do for him.

He spent more time than was strictly necessary trimming his quill, took a sheet of paper, and wrote to Lord Tilney.

He agreed to support Lord Denton in his tax initiative in return for votes to increase taxes on gin production and enforce stricter licensing among gin retailers as well as to support funding for the Foundling Hospital.

As he signed and sealed his response, he hoped his decision had made his father proud.

T he next day, Halverton struggled to keep his eyes from Miss Thorpe’s pert nose and full lower lip.

Since playing her inventive version of pall mall, his opinion of her had shifted.

She rode beside him on Daisy, having completed numerous lessons with Jones, the results evident in her excellent posture and even posting.

Watching her now, one would never guess she was used to riding without saddle or bit.

She caught his gaze and beamed, duly proud of her progress.

They traveled over a wide path surrounded by trees.

Though she’d promised not to, he worried that Miss Thorpe might try a jump.

Should anything happen, Graham rode behind, ready to assist. In fact, it was Graham who’d requested to accompany them.

Given that his valet possessed more knowledge about horses than most grooms, Halverton had consented.

Very likely, his valet was curious to observe the young lady who leaped over fences and had convinced Lady Halverton to throw a ball after spinning in circles with her eyes closed.