Plain and Proper by M J Marlow (beach read TXT) 📕

Plain And Proper


It was a beautiful day. The skies were blue and large fluffy clouds floated along providing intermittent shade for the people working in the fertile fields of the estate. Several of them stopped to raise a cap to the chestnut-haired miss driving a small wagon along the back road between the village and the manor house. She smiled and waved at them happily and they smiled as she returned from her errand, for this little lady was dear to each of them. Her gentleness and kindness endeared her to people; her exuberant nature delighted them. There was not one person on the estate who would not willingly do battle to protect her from the ugliness of life. Their thoughts were kind for her; but her thoughts were not gentle at the moment. At this moment in time, Lady Marianne Pumphrey, seventeen-year-old niece of the Baroness of Tregallen, was most decidedly out of sorts. And it was all the fault of hair ribbons and her constantly rebellious hair.
Just once, the pretty child thought irritably as the ribbons slipped from her hair, she would like to own a hair ribbon that stayed where it was put. She grabbed for the ribbons as they slid out of her hair and overbalanced as she hung out over the side of the wagon. Ribbons and Marianne fell over the side and landed in the mud. She watched the wagon roll off without her until the horse realized no one was making it move. It stopped and lowered its head to crop at the weeds along the old cart trail. Aunt is going to kill me, she sighed as she looked at the skirts of her new purple gingham dress covered in mud.
“Are you hurt, Miss?” a young man’s voice filled with concern and a tinge of amusement sounded from above her. Joanna looked up to see a young man filling a uniform to great effect dismounting from the back of an immense gray stallion to hold his hand out to her. “Let me help you.”
Marianne could not speak. It was as if her voice, the very air in her lungs had been taken from her. No man should be allowed to be so perfect, she thought as he helped her to her feet and began to knock the clumps of mud from her skirts. His warm brown eyes, the color of the sherry Aunt took for medicinal purposes before bed, were looking down at her from several inches above her head. She was suddenly very conscious of the fact that she was covered in mud and her hair had fallen loose all around her. And he was laughing at her. She stepped away and muttered something about being late. He bowed his head and mounted his beautiful stallion and rode off without another word. A hallucination, she told herself. He had to have been her imagination because real men just did not have any right to look like every fairy tale prince who had ever populated her dreams and imaginations. She pulled the ribbons out of the mud and trudged down the road to the wagon, climbing up with a frown on her heart-shaped face. She picked up the reins and slapped them gently against the horse’s neck. It started trudging again and Marianne sat back to ponder what she had done to deserve the series of misfortunes today had become.
When she had woken up this lovely morning, she had been looking forward to spending a day in the village schoolhouse helping the new teacher, Widow Larchmont, prepare the lessons for the younger children. Instead, her invalid aunt Eustacia Pumphrey, the Baroness Tregallen, had decided that Marianne needed to go – at once – to the village of Stone Hollow and pick up her medications from the Postmaster. Since Marianne was the only one around when she had issued this dictate, once again the servants had been absent, it fell on her to make the trip. She could not complain over much; her aunt had taken her in when her parents had died and she had no other family to care for her. Marianne loved the irascible invalid quite dearly for all of Eustacia’s demands. The prim and proper Eustacia Pumphrey and her lively young niece had formed an instant and permanent bond at first sight.
“Aunt?” Marianne called out as she walked into the house after washing as much of the mud off in the garden pond as she could. She was now soaking wet and barefoot instead of filthy. Her hair had been pulled back and tied with a length of leather from the tack room. “I’m back.” There was no answer and she went to the sitting room where Eustacia had been when Marianne had left that morning. Eustacia was there with a tall russet-haired man with gray eyes and a slightly shorter younger man with golden hair and warm brown eyes standing behind the settee the first man was occupying. It was the man who had seen her earlier. Joanna blushed furiously as he smiled at her again. She turned to her aunt, who did not look at all pleased for either of the men to be there.
“I assume this urchin is Marianne?” The russet-haired man said stiffly as he rose to his feet and looked at her in shock. He schooled his features and waited for some acknowledgement. “She takes after her mother, I see.”
“I did not know we were expecting company, Aunt,” Marianne ignored the cold man and turned to her aunt. She went to kiss her on the cheek. Dear Aunt Eustacia, who looked as if she wanted to laugh at her, kept her lips pursed in displeasure and shook her head. Marianne stepped back and felt like hitting one of those smug-faced men. Instead she remained quiet.
“Obviously,” Eustacia shook her head, her hair styled in the proper manner for an elderly invalid. The little lace cap was held in place with ruby-headed pins that glistened against the still deep black of her hair. Her blue eyes were sharp with annoyance as she straightened the skirts of her gray gown where Marianne had crumpled them before nodding at the men. “This is your uncle, Lord Andrew Macalester, the Earl of Avondale, Marianne. The young gentleman with him is his Aide, Lord Gerard Travers, the Earl of Strathmore.”
Marianne went pale then. They were entertaining two peers of high rank and she was standing barefoot with her dress dripping water on her aunt’s best carpet. She could only imagine what she must look like to them. But neither of them was aghast; they appeared to be much more amused; then shocked. They were laughing at her! Marianne straightened then and glared at them coldly, her chin tilted in indignation. Instead of being cowed, they both seemed to be highly amused at her behavior. Marianne had never been angrier in her life.
“Your uncle and his platoon will be staying with us for a while.” She noted the man’s look of censure. “Go upstairs and have Estelle help you wash up and change. We are expected at the Tremayne’s for dinner in an hour.”
“Yes, Aunt,” Marianne nodded and left the room wondering why the sight of that brown-eyed man made her so uneasy. Her lady’s maid, Estelle, was waiting for her. “I fell off the wagon trying to catch my ribbons, Estelle,” Marianne explained her condition as Estelle helped her undress.
“Honestly, my lady,” Estelle sighed. “You have to stop acting like a child. You’re a young woman now.” Her eyes were twinkling with amusement then. “That young gentleman is very handsome, is he not?”
“He helped me up after I fell,” Marianne said as she slipped off her boots and removed her stockings. She heard Estelle gasp and turned to look at her. “What is wrong now?”
“You have destroyed another dress, my lady,” Estelle stated, looking as if she wanted to cry. Marianne saw the rip then and she went red. The Earl of Strathmore had seen her like that! They all had seen her like that, but no one had commented on it. They obviously had manners.
“He must have thought me some village doxy…”
“My lady!” Estelle broke in. “You are a lady. You do not use such language.” She put the ruined gown aside. “It can be used to make a dress for Widow Larchmont’s daughter.” Marianne smiled and agreed. The school teacher was one of her favorite people in the world and her daughter, Esme, was the sweetest child Marianne had ever known. “We’d best hurry. Your aunt will want to be on time.” Marianne washed and slipped on a clean chemise and undergarments. The long-suffering woman helped her into a lovely violet blue gown the exact shade of her eyes. It was cut in the latest style, but along modest lines. Her first grown up dress, Marianne sighed happily.
“It’s so lovely,” Marianne smiled as she ran her hand along the silk. “But Aunt said I was not to have a new gown until my birthday.”
“Your uncle, Lord Macalester, brought you several new dresses,” Elise said as she wrestled her charge’s hair up, winding violet blue ribbon through it. “There!” She nodded in satisfaction. “Let us try to keep these ribbons in place, young lady!”
Marianne was too young to have any other adornment except the locket her Mama had left her, so Estelle found a violet blue velvet ribbon and the locket went around the girl’s slim neck. Estelle handed her the white lace shawl and the pair of white gloves and sent her on her way, asking herself yet again what she had done to deserve such a child as her charge. Equal measures of delight and exasperation, Marianne was the dearest girl Estelle had ever known. Everyone who met her felt the same way.
Marianne paused at the top of the stairs and looked at the two men. They had changed into evening clothes and she was stunned. They were two of the handsomest men she had ever seen in all her seventeen years. They turned as Eustacia gasped and looked at her. Marianne checked herself quickly. Had she destroyed her pretty new gown already? But it was admiration she saw in the eyes of the young man who was coming towards her. Uncle Andrew nodded and leaned down to listen to Eustacia’s comments, nodding as he devoted his attention to the woman.
“Andrew,” Eustacia said tightly. “That is the most…”
“She’s not a little girl any more, Eustacia,” Andrew replied. “It is time she dressed – and acted – like the young woman she is.”
“She looks beautiful,” Gerard said softly. Beautiful was such an inadequate word for the way this girl looked. The gown caressed her curves lovingly and his hands itched to do the same thing. He chided himself for such thoughts. She was his charge, and she was the niece of a man he admired and respected. He had no right to think what he was thinking about the lovely creature standing before them.
“Do come along, child,” Eustacia sighed as she saw the girl trying to extricate her shawl from a scrolling in the stair rails. Gerard went to help her and Eustacia noted the way Marianne blushed as his hand touched hers accidentally. She turned to Andrew and the man was looking quite definitely elsewhere. Her eyes narrowed as she realized her niece was being ambushed. This was not to be allowed! She would have to have ‘words’ with her brother-in-law later.
“Leave the thing,” Andrew snapped just as the shawl came loose. He hid his smile as the young man he had