Grenville 02 - Lord John's Dilemma Read Online Free Page B

asked.
    “Miss Haverley?” Lady Lindsay drew back, brow furrowed until she placed the name. “Oh! You mean the governess! Yes. Thank you for your assistance in that matter. I am sorry if she troubled you.”
    Her dismissal of the game little woman irritated him. He persisted. “She was no trouble. I hope she is proving satisfactory?”
    “She will do, I suppose. Although she does spend a great deal of time out of doors with my girls. It seems she is vastly fond of nature. I only hope she will not ruin their complexions.”
    “I understand that is what parasols are for,” he said.
    “Well, yes. When they remember them, that is. Tell me, do you intend to remain at the Manor, or will you be off for London?” Lady Lindsay asked.
    “I am situated here for the time being, though I have a project in mind that may take me to London in the future. How about you, Lady Lindsay? Shall you be doing the Little Season this autumn?”
    He caught a slight frown on her face as she looked at Miss Lindsay. “Most likely. Marianne has several suitors on her string and is in great demand. She longs for London.”
    “And what is it that draws you to London, Miss Lindsay? Balls, routs, beaux?” John asked.
    She flashed him a look, and he was surprised to read impatience. He saw now that her eyes were dark brown. “I find the country… lacking in amusements, I must confess,” she said.
    “It is incredibly appealing after war,” he returned.
    “Oh,” she said, shrugging. “I am sure you are right.”
    Felicity led the housekeeper out onto the terrace. Mrs. Hopkinson was carrying a tray holding a pitcher of lemonade and glasses.
    An imp prompted him. “I am tempted to make my home in the country. My brother is taking me on as estate agent.”
    “I thought you said you would be going to London,” Miss Lindsay said, her tone carrying reproach.
    “I have a scheme in mind that may call me there from time to time, but Lincolnshire is my home. There is nothing like the green of England. Are you fond of poetry, Miss Lindsay?”
    Her dark eyes flashed surprise. “Oh… of course!”
    “The poems of Wordsworth provided great solace to me on that parched Peninsula.”
    “Marianne adores Wordsworth,” her mother said.
    Lord Lindsay rejoined them with Jack and partook of the lemonade. “Lady Grenville, you have a fine lad here. He will make a good soldier.”
    Felicity smiled at him and said smoothly, “It is to be hoped there will not be any more wars in the near future. Jack is heir to the earldom.”
    The man cleared his throat. “I have no heir, more’s the pity. But then, my estate is not entailed. It will go to Marianne’s husband.”
    With this very obvious carrot dangling before him, John struggled to remember the viscount’s lineage. He had a vague idea that King George had bestowed the peer’s title for valor during the war.
    Lady Lindsay was holding a handkerchief to her eye with delicacy. “The viscountcy will die with my husband. I think it is unjust.”
    So why would they be satisfied with marrying their eldest daughter to a second son with only a courtesy title? If her husband was to inherit the Lindsay estate, why did they not want a title for her? Had she been unable to tempt an appropriate aristocrat into marriage?
    “It is all a hum,” his lordship said. “I was not born to the title. The important thing is property. That is what makes a gentleman. And Marianne will inherit the property.”
    This was an unlooked-for wrinkle. He had become opposed to the idea of a life of leisure as the only existence for a proper gentleman. He did not especially wish to inherit a fortune and do nothing but attend the Season with its everlasting entertainments, dwell in boredom in the summer months, attend house parties in the fall and winter, and start all over in the spring. Why should he live a life of frivolity when his men didn’t have a decent place to live and enough to eat, crammed as they were into the filthy