Jack obliged, supplying the details he’d omitted earlier, those aspects of his activities during the Waterloo campaign of most interest to James. “And that, thank God, was the end. Once Napoleon was on his way to St. Helena, there was no need for any of us to remain in France.”
“So you returned to the fray here. I take it you’re satisfied your inheritance is under control?”
Jack nodded. “It took longer than I’d thought, but I’m happy with the new system we’ve instituted—it should allow me to manage the reins from here.” He looked around at the well-remembered vistas, noted how much the trees and shrubs had grown. He glanced at James. “Now you can brief me on all that’s happened here.”
James smiled, and did, rattling through a potted history of the births, deaths, and marriages in the area, of those who’d moved away, and those who’d arrived to take their place. “As Griggs no doubt has told you, all your tenants are still in place. Avening village is much as it was, but…”
Jack listened intently, committing much to memory; all that James let fall was information he needed to know.
Eventually, however, James wound down, without revealing what Jack most wanted to know. He inwardly sighed, and remarked, “You’ve forgotten one major event—Lady Clarice. When did she arrive?”
James grinned; they strolled on. “Two months after your father left us. Quite opportune, as it happened.”
“Opportune?”
“Well.” James grimaced. “Your father had always been the bulwark of village life. His word was law, not just in the legal sense but everyone about relied on his advice and even more his judgment—adjudication, if you will—in disputes large and small. People round about had grown to depend on him, and then suddenly he wasn’t there, and neither were you.”
Jack glanced at him. “But you were here.”
James sighed. “I fear, dear boy, that gaining a research fellowship from Balliol falls far short of giving one the expertise to step into your father’s shoes. By the time Clarice arrived, matters were well-nigh chaotic.”
Jack hid a frown. “And she fixed things?”
“Yes. Unlike me”—James smiled self-deprecatingly—“she’s been trained to the role.”
Jack’s inward frown deepened. “She mentioned she was Melton’s daughter.” So what was she doing there?
“Indeed. Melton, her father, was a cousin. My father was his father’s younger brother.”
When James said nothing more, Jack kept his lips firmly shut, and simply waited….
Eventually, James chuckled. “All right, although it all seems ancient history now. Clarice was Melton’s fourth child by his first wife, the only daughter of that union. Her mother, Edith, definitely ranked as a grande dame, a very forceful woman.”
Presumably the source of Boadicea’s steel.
“Edith died of a fever when Clarice was young. Four or five years old, I can’t recall. Melton married again and sired a quiver of daughters and a fourth son by his second wife—I don’t know much of them. Nevertheless, Clarice’s life would no doubt have followed the predictable pattern—there’s never been any shortage of families keen to ally themselves with the marquisate—except that at sixteen, she formed an attachment for a local neighbor’s son, a guardsman. Not quite what Melton had in mind for her, but the lad was heir to a nice enough estate, so Melton allowed Clarice to persuade him. All well and good, but then the Peninsula campaign came along and the young man went to Spain, and died in an engagement there. Clarice was devastated. Instead of being presented and doing the Season, she spent the next years quietly at Rosewood, Melton’s principal estate.”
“So what brought her here?”
“Ah, we’re barely halfway through the tale.” James paused, ordering his thoughts, then went on, “As I said, there’s never been any lack of gentlemen with an eye to Melton’s coffers, and Clarice is six years older than her next sister. A cad named Jonathon Warwick got wind of Clarice. He went to Rosewood and pursued her, but was cunning enough to hide his true colors.”
“I remember Warwick.” Jack heard the hardness that had infused his voice. “We met during that long-ago year I spent in town, before I enlisted. Even then, ‘cad’ would have been a generous description.”
“Indeed. By the time he took up with Clarice, Warwick’s estates were mortgaged to the hilt, he was being dunned left and right, but he still looked and played the part of an impeccably turned-out, thoroughly eligible gentleman. And he was well experienced in knowing just how best to trade on his pretty face.”
Jack made a mental note that should he ever meet Warwick again, he’d find a way to rearrange said pretty face.
“As I heard it, Warwick led Clarice on to the point where, when Warwick approached Melton for permission to marry her and he, of course, tossed him out on his ear, Warwick was able to convince Clarice to elope. Not, of course, that Warwick planned on following through with such a plan—he wasn’t about to jeopardize his entrée into polite circles. Instead, he sent a message to Melton, along with a demand. From Melton’s point of view, it was easiest to simply buy him off. What neither Warwick nor Melton expected was that Clarice would unexpectedly turn up and overhear the transaction. According to Melton, she stormed in, pinned Warwick with a glare, then slapped him hard enough to knock him out of his chair. After giving him her opinion of his antecedents, she walked out. Melton was quite proud of her.”
Jack frowned. “So to escape the consequent whispers, she came here?”
“No. Stop getting ahead of me, boy.” James snorted. “Anyway, can you imagine Clarice being bothered by whispers? Indeed, I’m not sure there’s many would dare whisper about her. Regardless, her reaction to the incident with Warwick was that it was clearly past time she returned to the capital and found herself a husband. She was twenty, and it was time to leave her father’s roof. An estimable conclusion, one with which both Melton and his second wife wholeheartedly concurred, so with her customary single-mindedness, Clarice sallied forth to do battle the following Season.”
Jack had no trouble envisaging that.
“However—and here I’m extrapolating from what my correspondents told me—Clarice proved difficult to please. Not one of the horde who prostrated themselves at her feet found favor. Worse, after two Seasons she’d gained the reputation of being an aristocratic iceberg, unlikely to melt for any man.”
Jack blinked. Icy was not an adjective he would have applied to Boadicea.