Anything but Love (The Putney Brothers Book 1) Read online

  “And be universally labelled a hair-witted bird brain for refusing the best offer that I am ever likely to get for my hand?” she said, pulling a face. “No, thank you!”

  “But you don’t want to marry me or anyone else!” he said, laughing with surprise at her opinion. “You told me so only three minutes ago!”

  “But you weren’t making a genuine offer for me then,” she said, as though this was perfectly obvious.

  “Neither will this one be – it’s only pretending to keep you safe.”

  “Yes, but no one else knows that,” she replied, as though that explained everything to her satisfaction. “I don’t wish to marry, but nor do I wish to be considered a widgeon. No, I still think it is better that I do not stay at Putney Manor for more than a day, despite your kindness. Perhaps Mrs Melthwaite will consider putting up at a hotel if she agrees to pretend to be my chaperone?”

  “Mother would never allow it,” he replied, dismissing the idea immediately. “Besides, my plan has the advantage of keeping any other fortune hunters away until Gordon is back to take care of you. If it’s assumed that you’ve at Putney Manor to see if we wish to marry, then it’s unlikely any rogue would try to cut in.”

  “What if I met someone I liked, though?” she replied.

  He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of her falling for someone else and ruthlessly thrust any such thoughts away from his mind.

  “But you don’t want to marry – you just said so.”

  “Well, I might if it was the right person,” said Marianne, as though she were not blatantly contradicting everything she’d already confessed. “Staying at a hotel with Mrs Melthwaite would allow me to meet a lot more eligible gentlemen without the assumption that I’m destined to marry a Putney.”

  Either her time with the Headleys had impaired her wits, or she was making fun of him. He thought back to her one and only Season in London, and how often he’d thought that her sense of humour was very much like that of her brother.

  He decided not to rise to her bait, and instead focus on the benefits of his still-forming plan.

  “And what if your cousin learns you are without protection?” he asked her. “We have already established he will go to extraordinary lengths to attempt to coerce you into marriage, my dear. Are you confident you could best him by yourself? Mrs Melthwaite is a redoubtable character, but even she could not prevent your legal guardian forcing you to return to the care of his mother.”

  He felt terrible as she went a sickly shade of green at his words and even began to shake again.

  “I had not thought of that,” she said quietly. “I’m so sorry if I sound ungrateful. It’s just that I never appreciated what freedom I had before my brother left, and I find myself afraid to give another person such control over my life again.”

  He felt terrible for her and guilty for having no choice but to prevent her from grasping her much-wanted freedom a little longer.

  “No need to apologise, Marianne; they were all perfectly good suggestions. We will get you to the Manor shortly, and perhaps my parents will have a better plan. With luck, your brother will be home within a few weeks, and you can return to your life in London in time for the Little Season.”

  “Yes, I suppose that is what I must do,” she sighed. Her smile was weak, and she looked exhausted. Charles couldn’t help but feel like he’d made a hash of things, but for the life of him could not think of a way to soothe her troubled thoughts.

  They completed the rest of the drive more or less in silence. Even Phillips did not raise a comment as they took the main road through Newtown and passed by his favourite haunts. Marianne looked about her with interest, her eyes resting on the dressmaker’s shop for as long as it was visible, but she did not comment on anything she saw. He tried to entertain her with the ghost story of a local tavern, but beyond a polite “how interesting!” did not seem inclined to talk.

  A number of locals, from labourers through to tenant farmers and local gentry, watched curiously as they passed, Charles touching his hat in greeting to many of them. He strongly suspected that a number of visitors would call at the Manor in the coming weeks, all agog to learn the identity of the shabbily dressed girl at his side.

  They would need to have their plan completed and his family participating if any of them wanted to come out of this with their reputations unscathed. The Putney's were well-liked, but the local population were traditionally minded, and an unmarried girl living under his protection was not something they, or society as a whole, would accept from a man of his rank.

  Beyond the edge of Newtown farmland reappeared, but it was only a short distance to the village of Llanfyllin, where many of his family’s indoor staff and farm labourers made their home. They passed by the neat cottages, the ancient church, the small woodland, and then turned to pass through the simple stone pillars that marked the entrance to the Manor. The driveway swept around to the right, meaning that the house did not come into view until the last moment.

  Marianne’s gasp of delighted surprise made him smile.

  “Lovely, isn’t it?” he said.

  “It’s perfect,” she replied as they drove up toward the front door, and Charles felt his heart swell with gratified pride.

  Putney Manor, while not the oldest property in Montgomeryshire, was certainly considered one of the most beautiful estates in the County. It had remained in the same family for the best part of two hundred years, passing from father to son in an unbroken line for six whole generations – right up until his father, Sir Joseph, had bought it for a trivial sum thirty years earlier.

  Charles was well aware of the awe in which the local population held Sir Joseph, and that both he and his brothers had benefitted greatly from their father’s reputation. The Manor, by all accounts, had been left to fall into ruin by a succession of wasteful rogues whose focus had been on wringing every last groat from the estates at the expense of their tenants. By the time Sir Joseph purchased the property, the original house was falling to pieces, the neglected farmers were unhappy and belligerent, and the community tired of the snobbish superiority the previous family had displayed.

  “Father bought the place from some distant relatives; a set of dirty dishes by all accounts I’ve heard,” he explained as he tugged lightly on the reins of the horses, causing them to slow their pace. “My great grandfather, Waldo Banks, was a loose screw and a regional legend – apparently local mothers tell their children to behave so that Old Man Waldo doesn’t get them in the night. He’s the one who built the folly up on the hillside over there. Fool’s Errand, the locals call it. Father calls it The Travesty, but my mother thinks it is romantic, and thus it remains.”

  Marianne glanced up at the building just visible in the distance; a deliberate ruin of a lighthouse without so much as a puddle to watch over.

  “Such different styles!” she said as Charles finally brought the phaeton to a full halt. He smiled at her diplomacy.

  Phillips climbed down from the back seat and came around to take hold of the horses. After handing over the reins, Charles stepped down from the carriage and onto the crushed stone drive, pausing only to give a fond glance up to his family home.

  “My father spent a king’s ransom on rebuilding the place. He swears it was part of his plan to capture my mother’s heart, but I suspect it was more a sense of familial obligation. His mother, Waldo Bank’s youngest child, was thought to have married beneath her and was cut off as a result. They thought she’d die a penniless nobody alongside her scholarly husband. I think my father derives great satisfaction from knowing that they were wrong.”

  It had certainly cost Sir Joseph a fortune when he could have purchased an estate almost anywhere else in the country. The Manor, while it still retained the red bricks of the late 17th century, now had modern sash windows with deep sandstone lintels, an impressive portico and large front entrance, and was topped with a straight roof of good Welsh slate. It was a simple, if extremely large home, that displayed taste
over vulgar wealth in every aspect of its decoration. It pleased Charles in a way he couldn’t quite articulate that Marianne appreciated it as much as he did, while others might find it less than impressive when compared to the more ornate properties scattered about the county.

  “Are all the grounds so pretty?’ she asked when Charles came around to help her down from the phaeton.

  “Humphry Repton designed them,” he replied, knowing full well that he sounded as though he gloated. Marianne, however, looked suitably impressed as she threw off the blanket she’d been wrapped in. She took his proffered hand and stepped down from the phaeton, her bare fingers looking unnaturally pale against his large leather gloves. He watched as she adjusted her bonnet and fussed about with her shawl, her dismay at her odd appearance very obvious.

  “They’ll love you,” Charles said gently. “Now, take my arm if you please, and I will carry your bandbox beneath the other. Hold your chin up, my girl. You are Marianne Hillis, and you have every right to visit Sir Joseph and Lady Putney if you wish.”

  She didn’t reply, but he heard her take a deep, steadying breath before throwing back her shoulders and raising her head high. It struck Charles that Gordon would be very proud of his sister and that more importantly, he himself was also feeling rather proud of her as well.

  Chapter Four

  "I am outraged on the girl's behalf," announced Aunt Eustacia as soon as she had been apprised of Marianne's situation. "To think that my goddaughter has been mistreated in such a way! Naturally, I have come to her rescue, or how will my godson feel when he returns from India?"

  "China," corrected Harry.

  Aunt Eustacia waved a dismissive hand at him. "He could be in the Americas for all it matters. Now his sister is my ward, he can be easy in the knowledge that she was well cared for."

  Charles grinned. Considering that Eustacia Melthwaite had never met Marianne's parents before their deaths and could only vaguely recollect Gordon as the grubby-kneed child, he was impressed at her immediate adoption of the Hillis siblings.

  Not that it surprised him in the least. Mrs Melthwaite may not have been good Ton by anyone's standards, but Charles was strongly of the opinion that she was the third-greatest woman alive after his mother and grandmother. It was a view shared by the whole Putney family, and while the Melthwaites might refuse any and all invitations to attend their balls in London, claiming they understood their place, they were always considered guests of honour at any Putney event they did appear at.

  Aunt Eustacia, as she was more commonly known in the Putney household, was the wife of a wine merchant who'd worked his way up from the lowest ranks of society, and never forgotten his roots. She was the youngest daughter of a Shropshire apothecary, and what she'd lacked in attractiveness she'd more than made up for with an exceptional understanding of other people and a shrewd intelligence that belied her jovial exterior. It was these strengths that Charles was relying on to help Marianne navigate the next few months, for if anyone could ensure that Miss Hillis was safe and accepted in country society, it was Mrs Melthwaite.

  “She is going to need some support over the coming weeks,” he told her. “Poor thing has been poorly used, and I worry that the worst is not yet over.”

  “What could be worse than being forced to live with Cuthbert Headley?” asked Harry from his seat beside Aunt Eustacia. “The girl must have a stronger core than I credited her with, for I think I should experience a decline and expire within days if he were my only company.”

  “I rather think he was trying to force her into marriage,” said Charles, the words tasting sour.

  “I would bet my husband’s finest Portuguese wine on it,” said Aunt Eustacia. “What was Gordon thinking, leaving her alone like this? Any fool could have seen that she’d be a prime target for fortune hunters!”

  “Dearest Aunt, Gordon doesn’t think,” said Harry with considerable joviality. “It’s what makes him such a delightful companion.”

  “And a lacklustre guardian,” she shot back. “That’s the problem with young men of consequence and fortune; they never develop the maturity to think.”

  "The dressmaker will be arriving from Newtown shortly," said Lady Putney as she passed her friend a glass of brandy without blinking. Charles suspected it was partly to prevent an argument, partly because Aunt Eustacia was famous for her love of brandy. "John has gone to fetch her here directly so that Marianne does not have to venture outside. Poor child has barely a stitch to her name, and I am determined to take her to every ball, rout and party I can manage this summer."

  Eustacia swilled the brandy around her glass, much to Harry's fascination. Charles couldn’t help but glance at the carriage clock on the mantle, where the hands loudly declared it was only a little past 1pm.

  "You must put on some events as well, my dear Hester. Allow me to tell everyone who will listen about the outrageous treatment the poor girl received at the hands of the Headleys. If we put it about that Charles rescued her on my orders, it will go better for her."

  "Should we be sharing that information?" asked Charles doubtfully. "The Headleys are her legal guardians."

  Aunt Eustacia gave a snort. "I doubt that her brother did anything so formal as to name them as her guardians. Besides, if the girl is half as wealthy as you claim, then they will try to take her back into their control, you mark my words. We need the whole town to be on the watch for them."

  "They wouldn't, surely?" he said, unable to contain his surprise.

  "Wouldn’t they?" said Eustacia darkly. "When I think of the tricks that were pulled trying to snag my daughters and their fortunes - well, let's say that Miss Hillis has the advantages of birth as well as fortune, and the cousin is not about to let a prize like that slip through his fingers. You will see them turn up in Newtown within weeks I have no doubt, and likely acting as though they are the wronged party!"

  "Then what do you propose?" asked Lady Putney. "Sir Joseph has gone to see his lawyers, just in case, but I share your concern that the Headleys might try more nefarious means to force Miss Hillis to their bidding.”

  "Public opinion," said Eustacia. "Marianne must be painted as the tragic heroine of the piece, and the Headleys as her oppressors. That will make it impossible for them to spirit her away and lock her up in a remote cottage."

  "Sounds like a novel by Mrs Ratcliffe," said Harry. "The one that John loves. Puzzles of Aurelius, or some such thing."

  "Mysteries of Udolpho, you horrid boy," said Aunt Eustacia, swatting a laughing Harry about the back of the head. "Too many people saw that Miss Hillis arrived here separately from me, and our story won’t hold up until we can turn people’s attention towards the more romantic side of the tale. She must become a local heroine."

  "It would solve a lot of problems," admitted Lady Putney. "We can explain everything to the poor girl after the dressmaker leaves."

  "No," said Eustacia firmly. "We will tell her beforehand. Think, Hester! Who better than your dressmaker to spread the dreadfully romantic tale of your son rescuing the beautiful Marianne on the word of her godmother?"

  "Romantic?" said Charles with alarm. Harry wasn't even trying to disguise his amusement at the whole situation.

  "Well you have to court Marianne openly if we are to protect her from fortune hunters," said Eustacia as though it were the most natural thing in the world. "An engagement would be preferable, but we can stall the need for a betrothal ball by saying we are waiting for her brother to come home."

  "But she doesn't want to marry me!" Charles spluttered. "Dash it all, I don't want to marry her, either!"

  “Then she will have escaped the clutches of the Headleys only to be in danger of other fortune hunters,” said Aunt Eustacia with ruthless unconcern for the state of Charles’ nerves. “Our story hinges on the fact she is a great heiress, and I will not thank you for sending a dozen rakes and rogues my way just because your sensibilities are lacerated.”

  “It’s very selfish of you,” Harry told him,
his expression schooled into that of a disappointed schoolmaster.

  “Of course, there’s no reason why it can’t be you or John who courts the girl,” said Eustacia, turning her eye onto the youngest Putney boy.

  “Definitely John if Charles can’t stomach it,” said Harry, pretending to give the matter some thought. “Charles is the heir, and John is a military hero. No one in their right mind would believe that an heiress threw over my brothers for me.”

  “Very observant of you,” muttered Charles. He could have sworn his mother’s cough disguised a splutter of laughter but knew better than to call her out on it.

  “Then it is agreed,” announced Aunt Eustacia. She downed the last of her brandy before setting the glass firmly down onto the side table. She hoisted herself up off the sofa and smoothed down her muslin skirts like a woman with a clear purpose. “Take me up to see the girl, Hester! We must apprise her of the plan before your dressmaker arrives!”

  Lady Putney got up to her feet as well, a bemused smile playing on her lips. “Try not to overwhelm the poor creature, Eustacia. She only arrived here last night, and you were already snoring.”

  “Nonsense,” huffed Eustacia as the two ladies made their way to the parlour door. “She has had plenty of time to recuperate from her journey, and must now attend to her future. If there is one thing I cannot abide, it is young women who do not take charge of their own destiny. Besides which, I don’t snore.”

  They continued to argue this point loudly as they left the parlour and headed off to Marianne’s room. Charles watched them go with some amusement and a lot of exasperation, unable to stop himself from wondering if he had done the right thing by Miss Hillis.

  “Do you know, I think I am in love with Aunt Eustacia,” said Harry with a dramatic sigh. “Do you think there may be an attractive, younger version of her roaming about the world?”

  “Start with the shopkeepers and newly established merchants,” Charles replied. “It’s where you’re most likely to find a girl with that kind of sense.”