THE BARONET'S DAUGHTER

CHAPTER SIX

                   CHAPTER SIX

Lady Susan Birkett sat in the drawing room of her half-brother’s house in Bruton Street, London and favoured him with a severe a look as her round pleasant face would allow.

    ‘Ambrose, it seems to me that you make no effort at all. Last season you were the most sought after man in London, yet, here you are, still without a wife. I admit I am quite crushed with disappointment.’

    ‘Dear sister, mine, it was my fifty thousand a year that was sought after.’ Ambrose smiled. ‘I admit though there were one or two beauties that made my heart race a little, but not enough to rob me of commonsense.’

    ‘You grow no younger, Ambrose. Commonsense will not warm your bed or give you an heir. A man should have an heir by the time he is forty.’

    ‘I am a few years off that yet,’ he exclaimed. ‘But I own you have a point there, Susan. Now that Father has gone, and I am the new master of Falsworth Grange, I should take a wife, but I will do so in my own time and in my own way.’

    Lady Susan’s plump lips formed a disapproving pout.

    ‘I devoutly trust that you are not considering that disreputable Mrs Vallentine. There were too many whispers about town last season linking you with that woman, which Lord Birkett found most displeasing.’

    Ambrose’s sun-weathered face clouded a little and his mouth became a straight line.

    ‘Gerald Vallentine fought beside me in the Peninsular. He was a fellow officer and a friend. I do what I can for his widow. Sophie has few real friends.’

    Lady Susan looked down her nose but held her peace. While it was true that Sophie Vallentine appeared to have few women friends, she was never at a loss for male companionship and Ambrose Warburton was not the only name bandied about in connection with the beautiful widow.

    In Lady Susan’s opinion the woman was no better that a light-skirt and she itched to tell him so. But she did not wish to quarrel with him at this time.

    The Season would be starting in several weeks. Her twin daughters, Cecilie and Dorothea, though extremely pretty girls with winning ways, would find even greater advantage in the jostle for husbands in having the very sought-after Major Ambrose Warburton of Falsworth Grange, Cornwall, as their uncle and escort.

    Her cheeks dimpled in a smile; her tone one of mock chiding. ‘Upon my word, Ambrose! I see why no woman will have you. You’re as crotchety as a hungry hound. I came all this way from Gloucestershire bearing a heartfelt invitation and you can only growl at me.’

    ‘I apologise.’ A wide good-natured smile brightened the austerity of his features. ‘I am a bear. I admit it.’

    His sister was pleased to see him smile. She was aware that the long years of campaigning had roughened the edges of his temperament, and even after sixteen months in England she knew he felt ill at ease in polite society. If ever a man needed a wife it was Ambrose.

    ‘I am pleased to see you, Susan and looking so well, and so very much after the rate.’

    Lady Susan preened, much gratified. Only recently come out of mourning for their father, she had rampaged through the fashionable shops in Bond Street to find accessories for the new gowns her seamstress was making for her.

    Beneath her modish tight crown hat decorated with tassels, Lady Susan raised the lorgnette that she had lately begun to effect and examined him critically.