The Marquess and the Midwife (*On Hold*)

6 Kyrie

I was self aware enough to know that there was something definitively, unequivocally wrong with me. Norah Collins had put me in my place. It might have been a tad petty, reminding me of an ancient childhood squabble, but it was the first honest thing any one of those pretty young women had said to me since the moment I had announced my eligibility. And I respected the hell out of her for it. What's more, I couldn't stop thinking about it. The dress I had made fun of then. The one I would have never made fun of now. The way she had raged at me had been almost as intriguing as the feel of her hands upon my chest as she tried to dab away the spilled liquor. Almost. But not quite.

"We've been receiving letters all morning," Grace announced by way of greeting as she breezed into my office without invitation as always.

I looked up from the receipts which had been sent to me from our jaunt into town. My sister had spent a nearly unjustifiable amount of money in a single afternoon but, as she had reigned in her spending since, I supposed it was less of a problem and more having to do with the fact that I'd done nothing to get this place ready for the season before her arrival. I turned my attention to her now with a furrowed brow.

"From whom?" I asked.

"Mothers," she announced, dropping a stack of cards onto my desk so thick that it actually thunked against the mahogany. My eyes widened. "All hoping you will do their daughters the courtesy of calling upon them this afternoon. I've done you the service of placing the more interesting ones at the top. Promise me you will at least visit one of these households today, brother."

I raised my gaze from the cards to where she stood above them, hands on her hips and eyebrow quirked in challenge.

"I have to balance the accounts," I said.

"I'll take care of them," she answered with a shrug and moved to walk around my desk.

"No," I blurted, snapping the ledger shut.

My face heated but I cleared my throat as Grace narrowed her gaze at me. The ledger was a mess, neglected in my frustration after I'd spent two years now trying to understand father's system and failing then adopting one of my own that was an embarrassing mixture of shorthand and whatever small amount I'd been able to glean of the official way of doing things. I knew Grace was only offering to be nice. She knew less about the accounts than even I did. But I didn't want her to see the mess I had made of things anyway. I couldn't imagine my own mortification if she'd managed to make out the details and realize just how much of a fool I was to be unable to balance simple accounts.

"No, it's–" I tried again, calming myself. "They can wait. I promise I'll visit one of these women."

"Five," she countered, crossing her arms.

"Three."

"Deal."

Then she twirled out of the room with a smile that informed me of just how thoroughly she'd won and I relaxed against my father's old chair, breathing deeply to calm my rapidly beating heart. I called my footman and had him call the carriage. Then I went in search of an acceptable top coat and was bounding down the steps to the waiting carriage minutes later. Best to get this over with so I could return to that miserable office and brood over the ledger some more.

I read the name of the first card to the driver. Georgina Morris. He drove off at speed. I watched out the window for a time, thinking that I likely should have brought the ledger with me. But I hardly had time to dwell on it before we were pulling up to the first manor and Morris household servants were excitedly opening my carriage door. I nodded a greeting at them and strode forward where I was welcomed and escorted to the drawing room where tradition dictated young women and their mothers received gentlemen callers.

Georgina and her mother were waiting within, welcoming me with open arms and a pile of sweets I didn't have the stomach for. Then I sat a respectable distance away from the young woman and spoke with her while her mother sat on her other side and watched us like a hawk. I always hated this part, this stuffy awkward first meeting where we made introductions and talked about our skills and interests as though we were applying for a job rather than a courtship. But Georgina persisted, bringing every one of her answers back to the idea of being my Marchioness so much that it truly did begin to feel like a job interview. She spoke of how well she could manage a household and how good of a party she could throw but nothing about herself personally, nothing about her interests or hobbies even when I tried to steer the conversation in that direction. So I was left with the belief that Georgina Morris did not speak about her interests because she simply didn't have any.

The next two visits went just as poorly. Mildred Brum hardly looked me in the eye. She barely even said a word, letting her mother speak for her more often than not and looking at her lap with a blush whenever I made eye contact with her. By the end of the visit, the only thing I'd learned about Mildred Brum was that her wedding night was more likely to kill her than any malady. Even worse, the third girl, Ida Pinnick, tried to outright seduce me. With her very own mother in the room, looking on as if to tell the girl that was how she won her father. Having decided I'd had quite enough of offered biscuits and adjusted cleavage, I made my way back to my carriage far more exhausted than I was when I'd ventured out this afternoon.

So I told my driver to return home and settled in for the ride. But I reached for the cards anyway because I had nothing else to occupy my time. As I sifted through them, I didn't notice any one name in particular but rather the absence of one that I had expected. Norah Collins had not sent me a card. Nor had her mother which was the far stranger occurrence. That alone had me thumping the top of the carriage to stop the driver so I could inform him to reverse course. We set off towards the Collins home moments later.

I resolved not to tell Grace about this little jaunt as my carriage pulled up in front of the woman's house and I looked out to find her family's servants already bouncing down the steps to meet me in the drive. I nodded to them and followed the footman inside. Everything was business as usual until I stepped into the drawing room to find myself quite alone. I turned back to the footman, sure that a mistake had been made, but the man was already closing the door behind him, leaving me alone in this drawing room.

"I am dreadfully sorry, Lord Rayfield," a woman's voice called out suddenly and I looked to the opposite door to find Miss Collins' mother striding into the room, arms spread wide and mouth set in a grim line. "I presume you are here to see Norah."

"Yes, madam," I answered, stunned and a little amused by her display as she placed her hands on her hips and shook her head dramatically.

"I'm afraid she isn't here at the moment. She has a weekly afternoon tea with her best friend every Tuesday. Oh, I've told her to cancel it, to stay here with me because of this very possibility, that a gentleman caller might come while she's out but do you know what she said?"

"What?"

"That any gentleman caller interested in her on Tuesday will surely be just as interested on Wednesday."

I couldn't help my grin of amusement at that.

"It's a fair point," I told her.

"It's embarrassing," she deflected. "But she's strong-willed, my Norah. We would be delighted to have you again tomorrow afternoon, my Lord. If your schedule allows for it, of course."

"Ah yes, well I will have to check my schedule."

"Of course, I don't mean to suggest she's a difficult girl," Lady Collins said then, eyes widening as she realized that she might have negatively impacted my view of her daughter. Little did she know it was quite the contrary. Still, she reached out and grasped my forearm as if pleading with me to forget everything she had already said as a mother with a wayward daughter who was quite at her wit's end. "She's really very lovely and smart as a whip. She just–"

"No harm done, my Lady," I assured her, holding up a hand to assuage her concerns. "I will call again at my earliest convenience."

She gave me a genuine smile and then called for the footman to see me back to my carriage. I nodded to the servants I passed on my way out of the house and climbed back into my carriage, informing the driver he could take me home. I had promised my sister I would call upon three young women this afternoon. I had called upon four. My duty being done, I settled in for the ride that brought me closer to an evening spent drinking my fair share of brandy and pouring over those cursed accounts.