A London lady would consider her gown hopelessly outdated, but Imogen couldn’t help that. She hadn’t visited Lancaster in—goodness, nearly a year!
Maybe she should think about visiting her dressmaker and ordering a gown or two. Hurtling downstairs, she nearly came a cropper on the narrow wooden staircase at the end of her corridor and had to grab the worn banister rail to steady herself. With a silent prayer that nobody had heard the clatter, she crossed the hall to the drawing-room.
More people than she had expected turned to watch her entry. Covered with confusion, Imogen settled for a curtsey. “Good afternoon,” she said.
“Good afternoon,” a stranger said in a softly cultured voice. She lifted her chin and stared into a pair of gray eyes crinkled at the corners with amusement.
Damn, they’d heard her. The only thing she could do was pretend it hadn’t happened.
She rose as gracefully as she could manage and held out her hand. He bowed over it, far too deeply for comfort. The depth of the bow indicated the rank of the person being addressed, and he’d almost touched the polished wooden floor when he performed his obeisance. Of course he might be demonstrating his poise.
He was dressed in velvet and brocade, dark red the main color. He looked magnificent, especially compared to her well-worn apple-green silk. No awareness of her admittedly dowdy appearance showed in his face, and his fine eyes showed nothing but warm regard. He straightened. He was six feet or just over, and handsome, with smooth skin and a well-shaped face.
Her mother drifted forward, her silks rustling. Imogen suppressed a sigh when she recognized another new gown. Unlike Imogen, her mother visited Lancaster on a regular basis. This pretty embroidered pale blue had probably cost a field’s worth of barley. She’d ensure the carriage lost a wheel so her mother could not get into town for the next month or two. Her mother had a room full of gowns she’d worn perhaps once.
“My dear, may I introduce you to the son of an old friend of your father’s?”
Imogen released another inward sigh as her heart plummeted to her shoes. Goodness, she’d turn into a gust of wind if she sighed much more. She forced a smile of welcome.
“My dear, this is Lord William Dankworth, the son of the Duke of Northwich. Your father knew his father in Italy. Your lordship, I have the pleasure of introducing my daughter, Imogen.”
Oh, yes, Italy, where her father had given away every penny of his inheritance that he could get his hands on. All for a man who didn’t care about them, would probably not remember their names if repeated back to him. For her father was a devotee of James Stuart, known in some quarters as the Old Pretender and in others as King James III. And, of course, his sons.
Imogen refused to have anything to do with any of it. She had little left to give, and she was determined to keep hold of it.
Keeping the smile fixed on her face, she led the way to the fire and greeted her neighbor, Sir Paul Reeves, and his sister, Amelia. Paul had long been a suitor of hers, but she suspected he was more interested in her land than her body.
For it was hers. Her father had been forced to leave it to her, because of the terms in her grandfather’s will. Otherwise, she’d be sleeping in a ditch somewhere, Thane Hall gone with everything else. Her house was all that was left of a once considerable inheritance and respected title. Now, the title in disgrace and most of the property gone, Imogen remained determined to hold on to what she had left.
Receiving an exalted person like the son of the Duke of Northwich meant one of a few possibilities. Either he was breaking a journey, as he claimed, or he’d come with some other purpose. If he tried to recruit her to the Cause, she’d send him away with little more than a flea in his ear.
That determination made her greet Paul with more than her usual friendliness. And Amelia, a shy woman in her early twenties who enjoyed nothing more than a quiet dinner at a friend’s house, was always welcome.
“I have ventured to invite Lord Bartlett to join us,” her mother said. “He will be here directly.”
Lord Bartlett had a much tidier fortune and clearly adored Imogen’s mother, but she wouldn’t have him.
The man in question arrived on the heels of her mother’s announcement, so Imogen greeted him with her customary kiss on the cheek, ignoring Paul’s disapproving stare.
Lord William led her in to dinner, and they followed her mother. By rank, he should have escorted her mother, but she had given a tinkling laugh and announced that they didn’t stand on ceremony here.
Once in the dining room, Lord William helped her to sit and took the chair next to her. “This house is charming. How do you keep it so unspoiled?”
By “unspoiled,” he probably meant “old-fashioned.” Still, he seemed interested, leaning forward, a half-smile on his face.
“The house was built when my ancestors were wealthy farmers, in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. They gained favor under King Henry the Eighth, and in two generations they had become nobility. They abandoned this house and built a grander structure a few miles further south.”
“And you do not live there?”
“We no longer own it,” she said smoothly.
At the head of the table, her mother winced, the movement nearly imperceptible, but Imogen had expected it.
“But we still have a comfortable competence,” her mother murmured very softly, but loud enough for his lordship to hear, just in case he had any doubts.
Imogen doubted her modest portion would attract a duke’s son.
“I have told my daughter I don’t know how many times that she should go to London for a season,” her mother said. “She would cause a sensation. I have no doubt about it, although I do have to admit a certain partiality.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” his lordship said dryly. “May I help you to some buttered parsnips, my lady?”
Imogen hated the title. She preferred her first name, or “Miss,” or even “Madam,” but anyone using the title she was born with made her edgy. She took the buttered parsnips. “But I have to correct you, sir. I’m not a ‘my lady.’”
“There are different ways of looking at that.” Lord Dankworth took the opportunity to lean close enough to murmur softly, “Your mother is quite right about the other observance. You will indeed cause a sensation.”
She wanted to scoff, but when she met his gaze, sincerity was all she could read. “I doubt it, for I have no town polish. But thank you, sir.” She didn’t want to appear curmudgeonly in her acceptance of a compliment. At least she knew not to do that, even if compliments made her uncomfortable.
He moved back before anyone could remark on the intimacy. “Think nothing of it,” he said, as if she’d just thanked him for the vegetables he’d placed carefully on her plate.
By the time they’d finished the repast—a single course which her mother apologized profoundly for, even though she’d managed to scrape eight removes together—Imogen had become aware of two things. That Lord William was a charming man and that he was undoubtedly interested in her.
How interested, she had no way of knowing. He might have decided to flirt with her as a way of passing the time. She could only hope so, because she had no intention of allying herself with Jacobites. He didn’t wait in the dining room with the gentlemen after dinner, even though Lord Bartlett insisted on his glass of port, but followed the ladies into the drawing room.
Unlike the other rooms in the house, which boldly