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After only a few minutes in Arthur Pendragon's company, Gwen as she's usually called, had no doubt, that every damning rumor she had heard about him was true.
He was a selfish ass and a repellent, boorish rake.
He was handsome...she would give him that. Although not in the way of Liam, who had also been blessed with the refined features and golden hair of a young Apollo.
Arthur Pendragon had dark edge to his good looks. They were bold and raffish, and weathered with a cynicism, that made him look, every bit his twenty-eight years.
She felt a little shock every time she looked up into his eyes, they reminded her, of the blue of a rough winter ocean, the vivid irises rimmed with blue-black.
He seemed exactly like the kind of man, that Lady Gemswick, who had raised her, had warned her about.
"You will encounter men who will have designs on you, my dear. Men without scruple, who will employ charm, lies, and seductive skills, to ruin innocent young women, for their own impure gratification. When you find yourself in the company of such a scoundrel, flee without hesitation."
"But how will I know if a man is a scoundrel?" Gwen had asked.
"By the unwholesome glint in his eye and the ease of his charm. His presence may excite rather lurid sensations. Such a man has a certain something in his physical presence...a quality of 'animal spirits,' as my mama used to call it. Do you understand, Gwen?"
"I think so," she had said, although she hadn't at the time.
Now, she knew exactly what Lady Gemswick had meant. The man strolling beside her, possessed animal spirits in abundance.
"From what I've seen so far," Arthur remarked, "It would be far more sensible, to set fire to this rotting heap of timber, rather than to try and repair it."
Gwen's eyes widened.
"Hampshire Priory is historic. It's four hundred years old," she said.
"So is the plumbing, I'll wager."
"The plumbing is adequate," she said defensively.
One of his brows arched.
"Sufficiently adequate for me to take a shower bath?"
She hesitated before admitting,
"You won't have a shower bath."
"A regular bath, then? Lovely. What kind of modern vessel shall I find myself soaking in tonight? A rusted pail?"
To Gwen's chagrin, she felt her mouth quiver, with the beginnings of a smile. But she managed to batten it down, before replying with great dignity.
"A portable tin bath."
"There are no cast-iron baths in any of the bathrooms?" Arthur asked.
"I'm afraid, there are no bathrooms. The bath will be brought to your dressing room and removed after you are finished."
"Is there any piped water? Anywhere?"
"The kitchen and the stables."
"But there are water closets in the house, of course."
She sent him a reproving glance, at the mention of such an indelicate subject.
"If you're not too delicate to train horses," he pointed out, "Who are generally not known for their discretion about bodily functions, surely you can bring yourself to tell me, the number of water closets in the mansion."
She colored, as she forced herself to reply.
"None. Only chamber pots at night, and an outdoor privy by day."
He gave her an incredulous glance, seeming genuinely offended by the idea.
"None? At one time, this was one of the most prosperous estates in England. Why the devil was the house never plumbed?"
"Liam said, that according to his father, there was no reason for it, when they had so many servants."
"Of course. Such a delightful activity, running up and down the stairs with heavy cans of water. Not to mention, chamber pots. How thankful the servants must be, that no one has yet deprived them of such enjoyment."
"There's no need for sarcasm," she said. "It wasn't my decision."
They proceeded along a curving path, bordered with yews and ornamental pear trees, while Arthur continued to scowl.
A pair of miscreants, was how Liam had described Arthur and his younger brother, William.
"They avoid polite society and prefer to associate with people of low character," he had told Gwen. "One may generally find them in East End taverns and sporting houses. Education was wasted on them. In fact, William left Oxford early, because, he didn't want to stay there without Arthur."
Gwen had gathered, that although Liam had no great fondness for either of his distant cousins, he had reserved a special dislike for Arthur.
What a strange turn of fate, that the same Arthur, would be the one to take his place.
"Why did you marry Liam?" Arthur startled Gwen by asking. "Was it a love match?"
She frowned slightly.
"I would prefer to limit our conversation to small talk."
"Small talk is a crashing bore."
"Regardless, people will expect a man of your position, to be accomplished at it."
"Was Liam?" he asked snidely.
"Yes."
Arthur snorted.
"I never saw him demonstrate that particular skill. Perhaps, I was always too busy dodging his fists to notice."
"I think it's safe to say, that you and Liam didn't bring out the best in each other."
"No. We were too much alike in our faults." Mockery edged his tone as he added, "And it seems, I have none of his virtues."
Gwen remained silent, letting her gaze pass over a profusion of white hydrangea, geraniums, and tall stalks of red penstemon.
Before her marriage, she had assumed that she knew all about Liam's faults and virtues.
During their six-month courtship and betrothal, they had attended dances and parties and had gone on carriage and horseback rides, and he had been unfailingly charming.
Although she had been warned, about the infamous Pendragon temper by friends, she had been too infatuated to listen.
Moreover, the constraints of courtship...chaperoned visits and limited outings, had kept her from understanding his true nature.
Only too late, had she learned a crucial fact of life...one could never truly know a man, until one lived with him.
"Tell me about his sisters," she heard Arthur say. "There are three, as I recall. All unmarried?"
"Yes, my lord."
The oldest Pendragon daughter, Cassandra, was one-and-twenty. The twins, Bia and Athena, were nineteen.
Neither Liam nor his father had made arrangements for the girls in their wills. It was no easy task for a blue-blooded young woman with no dowry, to attract an appropriate suitor.
And the new Earl had no legal obligation, to provide for them at all.
"Have any of the girls been out in society?" Arthur asked.
Gwen shook her head.
"They've been in constant mourning for four years. Their mother was the first to pass, and then the Earl. This was their year to come out, but now..." Her voice faded.
Arthur paused beside a flower bed, obliging her to stop beside him.
"Three unmarried gentlewomen, with no income and no dowries," he said, "Unfit for employment, and too elevated to marry commoners. And after spending years secluded in the country, they're probably as dull as porridge."
"They are not dull. As a matter of fact..."
Gwen was interrupted by a high-pitched scream.
"Help! I'm being attacked by vicious beasts! Have pity, you savage mongrels!"
The voice was young and female, pierced with convincing alarm.
Reacting instantly, Arthur ran full-bore along the path and around the open gate of a walled garden.
A girl in a black dress, rolled on a patch of lawn, bordered by flowers, while a pair of black spaniels jumped on her repeatedly.
Arthur's steps slowed, as her screams broke into wild fits of giggling.
Reaching his side, Gwen said breathlessly,
"The twins...they're only playing."
"Bloody hell," he muttered, coming to a halt, as dust swirled around his feet.
"Back, scurvy dogs," Athena cried in a piratical brogue, feinting and parrying with a branch, as if it were a sword. "Or I'll carve up yer worthless hides and feed ye to the sharks!"
She broke the branch in two, by snapping it deftly over her knee.
"Fetch, ye swabbers," she told the dogs, flinging the pieces to the far side of the lawn, and the spaniels raced after the sticks with joyful barks.
Meanwhile, lifting herself to her elbows, the girl on the ground...Bia...shaded her eyes with a bare hand, as she saw the visitors.
"Ahoy, landlubbers," she called out cheerfully.
Neither of the girls wore bonnets or gloves. The cuff of one of Bia's sleeves was missing, and a torn ruffle hung limply, from the front of Athena's skirt.
"Girls, where are your veils?" Gwen asked in a chiding tone.
Bia pushed a swath of hair away from her eyes.
"I made mine into a fishing net, and we used Athena's to wash berries."
The twins were so dazzling in their long-limbed grace, with the sunlight dancing over their disheveled hair, that it seemed entirely reasonable, to have named them after Greek goddesses.
There was something lawless and cheerfully feral, in their rosy-cheeked disarray.
Athena and Bia had been kept away from the world for far too long.
Privately, Gwen thought it a pity, that Lord and Lady Pendragon's affection, had centered almost exclusively on Liam, the only son, whose birth had secured the future for the family and the earldom.
In their hopes of having a second heir, they had viewed the arrivals of three unwanted daughters, as nothing less than unmitigated disasters.
It had been easy for the disappointed parents to overlook Cassandra, who was quiet and obedient. But the ungovernable twins, had been left to their own devices.
Gwen went to Bia and helped her from the ground.
Industriously, she whacked at the scattering of leaves and grass on the girl's skirts.
"Dear, I did remind you this morning, that we would have visitors today." She brushed ineffectually at a scattering of dog hair. "I was rather hoping, you might find some quiet occupation. Reading, for example..."
"We've read every single book in the library," Bia said. "Three times."
Athena came to them, with the yapping spaniels at her heels.
"Are you the Earl?" she asked Arthur.
He bent to pet the dogs, and straightened to face her with a sober expression.
"Yes. I'm sorry. There are no words to express, how much I wish your brother was still alive."
"Poor Liam," Bia said. "He was always doing reckless things, and nothing ever came of it. We all thought him invincible."
Athena's tone turned pensive, as she added,
"Liam thought so too."
"My lord," Gwen interceded, "I would like to introduce Lady Athena and Lady Bia."
Arthur studied the twins, who resembled a pair of unkempt woodland fairies. Athena was possibly the more beautiful of the two, with golden hair, large blue eyes, and a Cupid's-bow mouth. Bia, by contrast, was more slender and spare in form, with dark brown hair and a more angular face.
As the black spaniels danced and circled them, Bia said to Arthur,
"I've never seen you before."
"You have, actually," he said. "At a family gathering in Norfolk. You were too young to remember."
"Were you acquainted with Liam?" Athena asked.
"A little."
"Did you like him?" she surprised him by asking.
"I'm afraid not," he said. "We brawled on more than one occasion."
"That's what boys do," Bia said.
"Only bullies and lackwits," Athena told her. Realizing she had inadvertently insulted Arthur, she sent him an ingenuous glance. "Except for you, my lord."
A relaxed grin crossed his mouth.
"In my case, I'm afraid the description is most accurate."
"The Pendragon temper," Bia said with a sage nod, and whispered theatrically, "We have it too."
"Our older sister Cassandra, is the only one who doesn't," Athena added.
"Nothing provokes her," Bia said. "We've tried ever so often, but it never works."
"My lord," Gwen said to Arthur, "Shall we proceed to the glasshouses?"
"Of course."
"May we go with you?" Athena asked.
Gwen shook her head.
"No, dear, I think it best, if the two of you went inside to tidy up and change your dresses."
"It will be lovely to have someone new to dine with," Bia exclaimed. "Especially, someone who has just come from town. I want to hear everything about London."
Arthur cast a questioning glance at Gwen.
She answered the twins directly.
"I have already explained to Lord Pendragon, that as we are in strict mourning, we shall dine separately."
The statement was met with a flurry of protests.
"But Gwen, it's been so dull without any visitors..."
"We'll behave perfectly, I promise —"
"They're our cousins!"
"What harm would it do?"
Gwen felt a twinge of regret, knowing that the girls were eager for any kind of diversion. However, this was the man, who intended to cast them out of the only home, they had ever known.
And his brother, William, from all appearances, was already half in his cups.
A pair of rakes was unsuitable company for innocent girls, particularly, when the girls themselves could not be trusted to conduct themselves with restraint.
No good could come of it.
"I'm afraid not," she said firmly. "We will allow the Earl and his brother to dine in peace."
"But Gwen," Athena pleaded, "We've had no amusement for so long."
"Of course you haven't," Gwen said, steeling herself against a stab of guilt. "People aren't supposed to have amusements, when they're in mourning."
The twins fell silent, glowering at her.
Ad Arthur broke the tension, by asking Athena lightly,
"Permission to go ashore, Captain?"
"Aye," came the sullen reply, "You and the wench can leave by way of the plank."
Gwen frowned.
"Kindly, do not refer to me as a wench, Athena."
"It's better than 'bilge rat,'" Bia said in a surly tone. "Which is the term I would have used."
After giving her a chiding glance, Gwen returned to the graveled walk, with Arthur by her side.
"Well?" she asked after a moment. "Aren't you going to criticize as well?"
"I can't think of anything to add to bilge rat."
Gwen couldn't hold back a rueful grin.
"I will admit, it doesn't seem fair, to require a pair of high-spirited young women, to endure another year of seclusion, when they've already gone through four. I'm not certain how to manage them. No one is."
"They've never had a governess?"
"From what I understand, they've had several, none of whom lasted for more than a few months."
"Is it so difficult to find an adequate one?"
"I suspect, the governesses were all perfectly capable. The problem is teaching deportment to girls, who have no motivation to learn it."
"What about Lady Cassandra? Is she in need of similar instruction?"
"No, she's had the benefit of tutors and separate lessons. And her nature is far gentler."
They approached a row of four compartmentalized glasshouses, that glittered in the late afternoon light.
"If the girls wish to romp outdoors, instead of sitting in a cheerless house," Arthur said, "I don't see what harm it would do. In fact, what reason is there to hang black cloth over the windows? Why not take it down and let in the sun?"
Gwen shook her head.
"It would be scandalous to remove the mourning cloth so soon."
"Even here?"
"Hampshire is hardly at the extremity of civilization, my lord."
"Still, who would object?"
"I would. I couldn't dishonor Liam's memory that way."
"For God's sake, he won't know. It helps no one, including my late cousin, for an entire household to live in gloom. I can't conceive that he would have wanted it."
"You didn't know him well enough, to judge what he would have wanted," Gwen retorted. "And in any case, the rules can't be set aside."
"What if the rules don't serve? What if they do more harm than good?" Arthur asked.
"Just because you don't understand or agree with something, doesn't mean that it lacks merit."
"Agreed. But you can't deny that some traditions were invented by idiots."
"I don't wish to discuss it," Gwen said, quickening her step.
"Dueling, for example," Arthur continued, easily keeping pace with her. "Human sacrifice. Taking multiple wives...I'm sure you're sorry we've lost that tradition."
"I suppose, you'd have ten wives if you could."
"I'd be sufficiently miserable with one. The other nine would be redundant."
She shot him an incredulous glance.
"My lord, I am a widow. Have you no understanding of appropriate conversation, for a woman in my situation?"
'Apparently not,' she thought, judging by his expression.
"What does one discuss with widows?" he asked.
"No subject that could be considered sad, shocking, or inappropriately humorous."
"That leaves me with nothing to say, then."
"Thank God," she said fervently, and he grinned.
Sinking his hands into the pockets of his trousers, he swept an intent gaze over their surroundings.
"How many acres do the gardens cover?" he asked.
"Approximately twenty."
"And the glasshouses? What do they contain?"
"An orangery, a vinery, rooms for peaches, palms, ferns, and flowers...and this one is for orchids."
She opened the door of the first glasshouse, and Arthur followed her inside.
They were suffused with the perfume of vanilla and citrus, right away.
Liam's mother, Janet, had indulged her passion for the exotic blooms, by cultivating rare orchids from all over the world.
And a year-round midsummer temperature was maintained in the orchid house, by means of an adjacent boiler room.
As soon as they entered, Gwen caught sight of Cassandra's slender figure, between the parallel rows.
Ever since her mother, the countess, had passed away, Cassandra had taken it upon herself, to care for the two hundred potted bromeliads.
It was so difficult to discern what each troublesome plant required, that only a select few of the gardening staff, were allowed to help.
Seeing the visitors, Cassandra reached for the veil that draped down her back and began to pull it over her face.
"Don't bother," Gwen told her dryly. "Lord Pendragon has taken a position against mourning veils."
Sensitive to the preferences of others, Cassandra left off the veil at once.
She set aside a small kettle filled with water and came to the visitors.
Although she didn't possess the robust sun-struck prettiness of her younger sisters, Cassandra was compelling in her own way, like the cool glow of moonlight.
Her skin was very fair, and her hair the lightest shade of blonde.
Gwen found it interesting, that although Lord and Lady Pendragon had named all four of their children after figures of Greek mythology, Cassandra was the only one, who had been given the name of a mortal.
"Forgive me for interrupting your task," Arthur said to Cassandra, after they were introduced.
A hesitant smile emerged.
"Not at all, my lord. I'm merely observing the orchids, to make certain there is nothing they lack."
"How can you tell what they lack?" he asked.
"I see the color of their leaves, or the condition of the petals. I look for signs of aphids or thrips, and I try to remember which varieties prefer moist soil and which ones like to be drier."
"Will you show them to me?" he asked.
Cassandra nodded and led him along the rows, pointing out particular specimens.
"This was all my mother's collection. One of her favorites was Peristeria elata." She showed him a plant with marble-white blossom. "The central part of the flower resembles a tiny dove, you see? And this one is Dendrobium aemulum. It's called a feather orchid, because of the petals."
With a flash of shy mischief, she glanced back at Gwen and remarked,
"My sister-in-law isn't fond of orchids."
"I despise them," Gwen said, wrinkling her nose. "Stingy, demanding flowers, that take forever to bloom. And some of them smell like old boots or rancid meat."
"Those aren't my favorite," Cassandra admitted. "But I hope to love them someday. Sometimes, one must love something, before it becomes lovable."
"I disagree," Gwen said. "No matter how much you bring yourself to love that bulgy white one in the corner..."
"Dressleria," Cassandra supplied helpfully.
"Yes. Even if you come to love it madly, it's still going to smell like old boots."
Cassandra smiled and continued to lead Arthur along the row, explaining how the glasshouse temperature, was maintained by means of an adjacent boiler room and a rainwater tank.
Noticing the speculative way Arthur glanced down at Cassandra, caused the hairs on the back of Gwen's neck to lift unpleasantly.
He and his brother, William, seemed exactly like the amoral rakes, in one of the old silver-fork novels...charming on the outside, conniving and cruel on the inside.
The sooner she could manage to remove the sisters from the estate, the better.
She had already decided to use the annuity from her jointure, to take all three girls away from Hampshire Priory.
It was not a large sum, but it would be enough to support them, if it were supplemented with earnings from gentle occupations, such as needlework.
She would find a small cottage, where they could all live together, or perhaps, a set of rooms for lease in a private house.
No matter what difficulties they might face, anything would be better, than leaving three helpless girls at Arthur Pendragon's mercy.
Stay safe!