Courting Destiny: Heirloom Romance, #1

Part 1

Homecoming

1

Mr. William Bryce the second, son of the famous Mr. William Bryce of Cumberland, had not known how much he had missed England until he was back on his native shores once more. It was a salve to his sore eyes, which for three years had stared at distant horizons, colorful exotic lands, and people whose faces and skin were so very different from his own. Their lives too, were different, and over the past few years he had almost forgotten his birth right, Cumberland estate and its refined beauty.

He had missed it all, the green of the hills, the mist that hung about the tops of the pines, the sheep dotting his father’s lands like tiny clouds, and the house itself, which stood as stately and as grand as ever.

It struck him, that while playing in the great house with his sister Harriet and stepsister Elizabeth as children, he had not seen the house as being grand, or as anything else other than a huge playhouse for their pleasure. Now a grown man, and returning after a long absence with a knowledge of the world, he looked at the house and the surrounding land that would one day be his, through different eyes.

Even as a young man setting off on his naval career, he had not imagined that Cumberland was as beautiful and majestic as he now knew it to be. Of course, his mother, having lived in less generous circumstances in the time before she married his father, had always tried to impress upon him how lucky they were, how much they had, and what it meant to be born into society... and the responsibilities that came with it. But he had not really known until he went away. Now that he had finished his service in the Royal Navy, he had come to terms with the fact that it was his duty to wed, his duty to find a woman of suitable standing and bring her into the fold of Cumberland. His real issue was the swiftness with which everyone expected this important, life changing episode to occur.

Was his father grateful for that at least? Grateful that his years in the naval service had given him a sense of home, as well as a sense of responsibility? He was now ready to learn how to run the estate and its stations... and to begin seriously considering a wife.

He could see his mother and father in the distance, leading two stallions around the corral. It was old gossip now, the way his mother worked like a man with the horses. Everyone around knew that if you wanted an honest opinion about a horse, you asked Lady Bryce, or her former brother in law, Mr. Richard. Uncle Richard was getting on in years though, and his mother wouldn’t be fit for this work very much longer. His father loved the horses and the joy they gave to his wife, but he wasn’t overly involved in the day to day business. That’s where the young Mr. Bryce would come in.

As he watched his mother and father, more and more the word ‘helpmeet’ occurred to him. For that is what they had been, every day of their lives. They had been equals, partners; each other’s most trusted advisor. Both of his parents had married for love, twice. Though they had each had their fair share of tragedy, his mother had impressed upon him how important it was for him to choose a woman he respected and liked, as well as loved, to be his wife. He sighed, and turned back to the house. It was almost too much: he was expected to find a wife as quickly as he could and also one that he liked? Almost impossible. For one, there were too many girls around at present, which was beginning to become rather a problem.

BRYCE THE ELDER WOULD not admit it, but he was much relieved to see his son back from service. He had opposed his going, opposed the vices that travel would afford him. Yet his son had returned from three years away much unchanged. A little sun-browned, a little wiser, but no less the energetic and outgoing lad that he had been before.

‘You needn’t have worried,’ said his wife. ‘Our son has not seen the same tragedy that you experienced. He had no reason to seek out any distraction. He just wanted to see the world and do service for his country. He is only curious.’

‘It is precisely that curiosity that worries me,’ said Bryce. ‘I feel that I have suffered the addition of many grey hairs to my head these past three years. Not to mention that now our Elizabeth and Harriet go seeking adventures on the high seas.’

‘Oh, it is hardly that,’ said Evelyn. ‘A trip to France is not a pirate adventure my dear sir. They will be safe and well looked after with their Aunt, believe me. You should be satisfied that at least our Rose is settled and happy.’

‘I am,’ he said. ‘Now, if I could multiply that happiness by three, I would be the happiest man on earth.’

‘Have patience, my dear,’ she said. ‘Remember how long you took to court your first wife, Lady Elspeth, and all the troubles we encountered during our engagement? It will come soon enough. Let them live a little first.’

Bryce did indeed remember those times and the great anxieties which had accompanied them. He reflected that his marriage, almost thirty years old by now, had settled into a wonderful friendship. It had been of much comfort to him during the years. He wished the same for all of his children. Very well, he would be patient.

2

It has to be said, that on the night of the dance given at Murdoch Estate, much attention was given to the preparations of both the young gentlemen and ladies who were to attend.

However, three young ladies could also be said to have been extra careful and diligent about the way they looked. This party was important. It was to be the first coming out of William Bryce the Second since he had returned from naval service. The dance was given by his best friend’s family. David Murdoch was from a family of very good means, he was likeable and handsome, but somehow he fell just short of Bryce on each score.

William Bryce was always the quickest to jest, but also, one felt that when you spoke to him, he was really listening. It was something to do with the earnestness in his dark eyes, the way he leaned forward slightly so his brown hair fell impatiently across his forehead. It was as if he simply must hear you; as if you were supremely interesting. His attraction was not based on his attentive qualities alone, however, it helped that his handsomeness and good character were accompanied by the biggest estate and largest wealth in the region. One cannot put such considerations altogether out of the picture.

So, for that reason these three hopeful ladies were particularly attentive towards their appearance:

Firstly, Hannah Birkstop. Her own family had once been well-off, but through a series of bad investments was now rather desperate. In the genteel but poisonous whispers that float through the sitting rooms of the district of this day, it was said that the Birkstop family was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Despite their hard times though, the Birkstop name still commanded respect. They were of old English stock.

Miss Birkstop herself was considered to be the hope of her family. All expectations of renewed wealth and standing had been pinned on her pretty face. If you think that milky skin, a perfect rose of a mouth and big blue eyes should show the strain of such weighty anticipation, you are wrong. Hannah would rise to the challenge, doing whatever she could to secure the hand of Mr. Bryce. In her mother’s words: You will throw yourself at him headlong, without appearing to do so.

So Hannah pinned up her golden curls with great determination. She would not let her family down.

Lorna Perfue and her family had no such troubles with money. Their lands and holdings were ample. But Lorna was an only child and if she did not marry and produce an heir, the family’s impressive wealth would go to a distant cousin. Her determination was no less than Hannah’s, although she was aware of being slightly less comely. Lorna was straight and skimpy in all ways: her body was skinny and miserly, her eyes squinty, her hair lackluster and thin. It was as though her maker had put any excess into her ears which were large and ungraceful and had been the barb of many a taunt. Lorna knew what her shortcomings were with painful alacrity, her mother having pointed them out to her every single day of her life, even before she was old enough to comprehend the words being flung her way. Where her looks fell short, Miss Perfue made up for them with a keen business acumen. She was tremendously, some said to her detriment, educated.  

Lorna pulled her hair in puffs over her ears, the only style that was becoming to her and doused herself in liberal squirts of French perfume.

Miss Destiny Blaine, was neither very rich, nor very poor. At least, her family would have been quite comfortable, were it not for her mother’s habit of adopting stray waifs and feeding, clothing and educating them. Sometimes the benevolence that was lavished on these outcasts was more than her own children saw themselves, to such an extent that Destiny and her brother could not help but be jealous occasionally.

Destiny’s mother was the arbiter of all decisions in the Blaine family, and she had decided that Destiny needed a wealthy husband. Not simply for Destiny’s sake, but so that Mrs. Blaine could continue in her charitable endeavors. There was little hope of Destiny’s older brother, Charles, making a good match: he wanted to be a poet. He might write the ladies sonnets and verses, comparing them to beauties of nature, but he did not have the constitution for marriage.

Destiny herself was undecided. She had not much experience with society, but her mother now thought it was high time she be brought out. This task was given to one of Destiny’s aunts, who had little idea of these things. Destiny had been wearing the same green dress to each dance, each party, for months now. The dress itself was very becoming, but it was beginning to be remarked upon. "My how green suits you," said one young lady, while kindly mothers would press the names of good dressmakers upon her. Destiny didn’t have the means for another dress. All spare pennies in the Blaine household were sent to the missions, or on her mother’s latest project of salvation.

Destiny did her long, auburn hair up the way she always did it, the way that everyone did it. Why, she wasn’t even sure that she wanted to get married at all! She had spent the year before in Germany, with an older cousin, and plenty of the women she had met there weren’t married. They seemed to have a sharpness of mind, and ease of speech, not to mention an enviable contentedness that was not visible in the women that Destiny knew in England.

Destiny was not quite beautiful. There was something about her that was to be remarked upon: her shining, auburn hair, her shrewd green eyes, and her womanly figure. Her skin was slightly tan from walking in the sun, her mouth appealing and sometimes turned arrogantly. Some would say she had an unusual kind of beauty, others said she was a tomboy and that there was nothing interesting about her.

Looking at her face now, Destiny was tired of its sameness, its air of being pliable, willing to please. She was sick of doing her hair up in this same manner; almost as sick of it as the green dress. She knew she was in for some snide comments at the Murdoch party tonight: too bad. If she had a terrible time, she just wouldn’t go again. Even if Mr. Bryce did look at her in that way he had previously.

Destiny had experienced an all too fleeting encounter with William Bryce the second before he went away three years ago. She had been walking through the outer grounds of Cumberland estate. There was nothing wrong with this of course, it was there to be enjoyed. She did love to ramble there, losing herself to silly dreams.

She had been doing just that when she tripped over a figure, lying prone in a bower of late blooming violets. She and young Mr. Bryce had sprung up like jack-in-the-boxes, both as startled as if they had come across a dangerous animal.

Bryce recovered himself first. ‘I do apologise, Miss. You must think me some kind of dolt, lying here dreaming in the grass.’

She expected him to offer some other explanation, but he didn’t. ‘On the contrary,’ she said, ‘I too, was dreaming. I’m afraid we shouldn’t be let out of doors.’ Of course she knew this was the famous William Bryce the second, as expressive as his father was unreadable, as talkative and gregarious as his father was taciturn and abrupt. He walked her back to the main road, concerned that she had turned her ankle.

She was not injured at all, but found herself to be struck like a wounded deer by the time they parted. She had never met a man so attentive, so interested in her thoughts and what she wished to occupy herself with. In that short time they had discussed books, music, and what it felt like to be beset by the expectations of one’s parents. He planned to fly in the face of his father’s decree that he should not join the service. He would do what he wanted, he told her fiercely.

She wondered now if that same determination had lasted and carried over to matters of the heart. Would the older more mature Mr. Bryce Junior marry for love, or would he instead make the prudent match that everyone expected of him?

Destiny sighed. There were so few surprises. No, Bryce would marry someone who was carefully handpicked by his mother and other concerned parties. She would be as perfect as if she had been formed for him especially. Destiny would not pursue him, despite her mother and aunt’s machinations. She would only end up looking the fool.

In a fit of rebellion, she spent the next while drawing her hair low, in two plaits that embraced her head, and wove a few purple flowers through the braids. Her dress might be