An Angel for the Earl (14 page)

“What you did was magnificent, and without any prompting.”

“Oh, it wasn't so much,” he preened. “I couldn't have the nipper blubbering all over the place, could I?”

“You could have handed him back to the sweep. Or had him carted off to the workhouse.”

“He's just a baby!”

“Oh, Kerry, you do have a conscience after all!” The kiss she placed on his cheek
almost
felt like a summer breeze. And it
almost
made his nose feel better.

“Don't worry about that, it will heal only a little crooked.”

“Crooked? My nose is going to be crooked?”

“Well, I think it will make you better looking, not so intimidatingly perfect. And you know what they say about vanity.”

“No, and I don't want to. I do want to know about Uncle Nigel. What do you mean, he's not dead?”

“I checked. He's very much alive and living in France.”

“In France? For all these years? Without telling anyone?”

“There was a war on, you know.”

“I suppose he could have been captured and been a prisoner of war,” the earl said doubtfully. “But why hasn't he come home now that the war is over?”

“Well, he wasn't exactly a prisoner of war. He was more a spy.”

“Then the government should have made a special effort to get one of their own people out earlier than this!”

“That's just it,” she said as the dinner gong rang. “He wasn't a spy for England.”

Chapter Fifteen

Dinner was not the complete disaster Kerry expected. His attire this evening was not up to Weston's standards in fit or style, but it was acceptable for a country gathering. The deficiencies went unnoticed in light of his battered face, which the Westcotts were too well bred to comment upon. Only John Norris grinned, until Kerry invited him to trade his cob for the black. Then Lord Westcott had to be shown the fearsome beast, so dinner was delayed for a trip to the stable, where Diccon was still playing with Lucky. The marquis was inclined to be suspicious of the boy's presence in a known libertine's household, but he was impressed with the horse despite himself.

“I wouldn't have gotten on his back for anything, not even in my salad days. Tossed salad, I'd be. I daresay a broken nose is a small price to pay for such a noble animal.”

And Lord Westcott was off in a rambling, onesided discourse of all the mean, unbroken horses he'd ever encountered. His monologue lasted through the soup course, the fish, meat, poultry, and sweets, with removes, and was directed to the entire table, not just his partner, the dowager. Lady Stanford kept a smile fixed on her face and pointedly fingered her paste diamonds whenever Kerry looked down the table in her direction. As if he needed a reminder that Westcott was as rich as Golden Ball, and had just the one chick.

Miss Felicia Westcott was a pretty girl, fair-haired, soft-spoken, elegantly dressed in a demure white gown with pearls at her neck and laced through her hair. Kerry thought he might have danced with her at some ball or other but he couldn't be sure; all debutantes tended to look alike. She blushingly denied it when he asked if they'd been introduced, so he gathered she'd been warned off rakes like him. But her duke hadn't come up to scratch, so the Earl of Stanford did not seem quite so reprehensible.

Well, marrying an heiress didn't seem quite so outrageous now either. Kerry vowed to keep an open mind.

Still, he was in no hurry to join the ladies after dinner, even though Lord Westcott's cigar made his hands shake with wanting a cigarillo. He sipped his port instead, and asked Johnny about his day appraising the lands for hog farming.

At the mention of hogs, Lord Westcott set off on a whole new saga of unruly beasts, culminating in the boar that had just trampled poor Tige Welford, one of his tenants. The widow was wanting to up and leave as soon as she could find someone to buy out her herd of pigs. Except for the boar. She'd shot the bastard and was even now making sausages. Westcott thought Kerry could get a deuced good bargain if he hurried. On the pigs, not the sausages.

Johnny was thrilled, even Kerry was excited. Sidwell was more cautious when consulted, citing the other costs involved. They carried the conversation and their glasses into the drawing room, where Miss Westcott was posed gracefully at the pianoforte. The marquis took a seat in the corner and placed a handkerchief over his face for a nap. Aunt Clara was sewing by the fire, and the two other ladies were enjoying shredding reputations on the sofa. Kerry directed John to turn Felicia's pages, so he could continue the discussion with Sidwell of how much of the horse sale money they could afford to pay out, after the secretary's study of the estate's income and expenses. Kerry did notice that Miss Westcott played adequately, more or less in keeping with Herr Beethoven's intentions, and softly enough not to impede conversation around her.

All in all, he congratulated himself after, it was a satisfactory evening. Of course he'd had to accept Lord Westcott's invitation to a hunt two days hence; that was the least he could do in recompense for the tip about Widow Welford's pigs. Lord Westcott declared he wanted to see the black in action. Kerry didn't need Johnny's wink and his mother's satisfied smirk to know the marquis actually wanted to see his prospective son-in-law in action.

* * *

“Tell me again about Uncle Nigel, Lucy. I don't know why I'm having such a hard time accepting it. After all, if I can think nothing of having a comfortable coze with a soul in transit, I should not cavil at Uncle Nigel's being a spy.”

Kerry was sitting in front of the fireplace in his own room, sipping a cognac. Lucy was sitting across from him with her embroidery, but the mirror over the mantel showed a solitary gentleman in his robe and slippers, talking to an empty chair.

Lucy set aside the altar cloth and smiled. “He never wanted to be, you know.”

“I didn't suppose anyone ever wanted to be a spy. I mean, it's not as if some boys are mad to enlist in the army, others hear a calling to join the clergy, and Uncle Nigel grew up itching to be a traitor to his country. All Nigel wanted to do, as far as I ever heard, was go fishing.”

“And so he did that day, but his boat capsized. While he was hanging on, waiting for rescue, a fishing ketch came along. Only it wasn't really a fishing boat, and the sailors were not English. They gave him the choice: stay there or come with them back to France. They would not return him to the English shore for fear of the patrols. He might have been rescued, but his arms were getting tired, and the water was getting cold. So he accepted their offer.”

“Understandable. He was just saving his own skin.”

“Yes, but then the smugglers felt he owed them something for their trouble, so he helped them unload their cargo.”

“Which was?”

“Guns.”

“Which was treason.”

“Exactly. And they said they'd kill him if he didn't tell them everything he knew.”

“About what, for pity's sake? Uncle Nigel wasn't with the government or anything. He was just a gentleman of modest means who liked to fish.”

“And who knew every current and tide and shoal on the coast of England and half of Scotland.”

“Fiend seize it, so he did. And he told them?”

She shrugged. “He did not want to die. After he told them what they wanted, the French let him go to find his own way home. Ashamed of what he'd done, he thought he'd skulk around and discover their plans, to report back to the British.”

“To prove his loyalty.”

“Precisely. Instead, he got shot.”

“But not killed?”

“No, he was taken in and nursed by a family of peasants who made a living fishing. As soon as he was recovered, he intended to pretend to be one of them, to earn passage home on another smuggling boat. Except…”

“Except?” Kerry was grinning now. Uncle Nigel's saga was starting to sound like a Minerva Press novel.

“Except that while he was unconscious, the patriarch of the family had him wed to one of the granddaughters. Nicolette was increasing, with decreasing chance of her
chère ami
coming forward.”

“The marriage wasn't legal. He was already married, for one, unwilling for another.”

“And not Catholic for a third. The family did not care. And Nicolette begged him to stay until the baby was born. What could he do? He had no money, these people had saved his life, and he had no state secrets to bring back to British intelligence anyway. The English would hang him, the French would shoot him. And Nicolette's father would skin him alive if he tried to escape.”

“So he stayed all these years?” Kerry finished off his drink and sat up. “What about Aunt Clara?”

“He thought she could never forgive him, so he might as well stay away and let her get on with her life, remarry, have the family they wanted.”

“Poor Aunt Clara.”

“And poor Uncle Nigel. He wants so badly to come home to her—Nicolette has been dead for years—now that the war is over, but cannot afford to.”

“Dash it, I can scrape passage money together. I can pawn my watch again, or Mother's paste diamonds.”

“For two thousand pounds?”

Kerry sank back. “What, is he planning on buying a yacht to bring him across the Channel? Won't the packet boat do?”

“He cannot come home without a pardon. Living in France all those years, aiding the enemy…”

“With a few tide tables?”

“He also did some interpreting of smuggled papers, to earn extra money for the children.”

“The children? No, don't tell me. This pardon thing, one doesn't just petition for it? We can get character witnesses, explain away the whole bumblebroth.”

“In a perfect world, yes,” she said with a frown. “In this one it requires bribes. Support for the Crown, I believe they call it.” She took up her needlework again, angrily stabbing the needle through the fabric.

“Two thousand pounds.” Kerry dropped his head back against the cushions. “Where the bloody hell am I going to get two thousand pounds? I already told Johnny we could use most of the horse sale money to buy the hogs, so there'll be an income down the road. And Sidwell thinks that if we chop down the home woods timber, we can earn enough to make the improvements necessary to get the tenants back, hence the rents. But that's years away. I even informed the countess that I couldn't pay a farthing toward her gaming debts. She fainted again, incidentally, when I told her that Flint can wear her diamonds on his next smuggling raid for all I care, but if he tries to sell the Stanford rubies, I'll have the both of them arrested. If I cannot afford to retrieve the engagement ring, I cannot afford to retrieve Uncle Nigel.”

“So you liked Miss Westcott?” Lucy asked with feigned indifference.

“She's a pleasant enough chit. But that wasn't what I meant.”

“She liked you.” Lucinda sucked on the finger she pricked.

“She liked Johnny and Sidwell, too. Did you see the priceless look on Mother's face when I announced I'd invited my secretary and my steward to dinner? That alone was worth all the insipid chit chat. Evened the numbers at table, at any rate, and gave Miss Westcott her choice of gentlemen to flirt with. Of course Johnny stared at her like a mooncalf all night, and Sidwell stammered, but Felicia was happy.”

“You didn't stare or stutter, yet she appeared pleased with your company.” And why not? Lucinda asked, but kept the thought to herself. “So she might welcome your addresses. Then a match there mightn't be a simple financial arrangement, her money for your title.”

“Now you're sounding like Aunt Clara, who looks for April and May everywhere. Everywhere but France, of course. No, I was not struck all aheap by Miss Westcott, and I doubt she is ready to throw her bonnet over the windmill for an earl residing in Queer Street.”

“But if you could find pleasure in her company, and she in yours, then love could follow duty.” Lucy ripped out the line of stitches she'd just sewn and bundled the cloth away.

“I doubt Miss Westcott has two thoughts to rub together beyond her clothes and her entertainments,” he noted, holding his still-full glass of cognac toward the fire, watching the colors change. “Oh, and her horses.”

Lucinda tilted her head to one side, studying his face. The only change she could see was the swollen nose and a healthier color. “But that's all you were interested in just a few days ago.”

“Was it just this week? I feel I've known you forever.” He laughed. “And is this effort to promote a match with Miss Westcott another thread in your fabric of my reformation? I thought we were doing well enough with saving fallen sparrows. Must you aim for leg shackles, too?”

“I wish to see you a better man, yes. But I like you, Kieren Somerfield. I also want to see you happy.”

“Thank you. That means more to me than a hundred flirtatious simpers or batted eyelashes from the likes of Felicia Westcott. I like you, too, Miss Lucinda Faire.”

They sat in comfortable silence broken only by the hiss of the dying fire, each deep in his or her own thoughts. Then Lord Stanford cleared his throat. “Ah, Lucy, if Uncle Nigel is alive in France, who the devil is Aunt Clara talking to?”

Chapter Sixteen

Dawn was not the best time for exercising horses—unless you wanted to make sure no one saw you make a cake of yourself falling off. Then again, it might be hours before anyone thought to look for his bruised and bloodied body. Kerry rather preferred it that way.

He'd prefer not to face Hellraker at all. His body was not in shape for another explosive battle of wills, and might never be. The horse would only grow more unmanageable left unridden, though, standing in a stall all day. It was better to school him again now, while he remembered yesterday's lessons.

Hellraker remembered, all right. He laid his ears back and ripped off a piece of the earl's jacket. He kicked and bucked and reared, but he got ridden to the point of exhaustion. The stallion learned—for the day at least—that he couldn't loosen Kerry from his back no matter what tricks he used. He also learned he wasn't getting whipped or raked with rowels at every turn. There was no blind obedience yet, but a little respect.

The respect went both ways. Lord Stanford came to appreciate the black's strength and stamina, and his courage, too. There was no hedge so high the stallion wouldn't take it flying, no stream so wide he didn't soar over. With a little more practice, the brute could make a fortune at every steeplechasing event in the county, if Kerry were a betting man, of course. He wasn't, not right now. Those crosscountry events took a high toll on horses anyway, he consoled himself. 'Twould be a shame to have such a superior animal lamed.

Or maybe not, Kerry thought as he lost the rest of his sleeve rubbing the beast down. The real shame was that he'd let go all those stablehands. His head groom was too old to dodge the flying hoofs, and the younger lads were far too green. The only one the stallion seemed to tolerate, aside from his lordship, was the fool dog Lucky.

“Just make sure Diccon doesn't get too close,” the earl instructed. Lud, what would happen if the boy followed the pup into Hellraker's stall? Had he ordered enough servants to watch out for the boy's welfare? Aunt Clara said she'd have breakfast with Diccon in the nursery, but what then? Gads, a child was a headache. If the Brownes weren't located soon, Kerry supposed he'd have to hire a nursemaid, then a governess, tutors. After that would come a school or a trade. In the meantime were clothes and books and toys and food. Enough food for a growing boy's appetite could bankrupt him. Zeus, when he remembered his own schooldays, he wondered if even the new pigs would be safe.

Which reminded him that he was going to need a boar soon, if he wished to stay in the hog business. All this worrying about money made him feel crass, mercenary. Dash it, things were easier in the old days, when fortunes were won or lost on the turn of a card.

Johnny Norris was back from Welford's farm with good news about the pig deal. They were ready to be fetched as soon as Stanford Abbey was ready for them. Unless they were to be lodged in the east wing, where the roof still leaked, the home woods had to go.

“But not the whole of it,” Johnny contended. “I never thought much of that clear-cutting. We could just take what we need in the old growth, let the young trees get more sun. That way you keep the rabbits and quail and deer, and have more timber to cut in a few years' time.”

“That sounds too reasonable. Why doesn't everyone else do it that way instead of clearing the whole stand and planting over it?”

“It's harder,” Johnny admitted. “Takes more manpower, and you get less yield all at once. But long-range…”

So Kerry lined up all those useless footmen, everyone but Simpson, who had a knack with neckcloths, Jeffers, who had Diccon riding on his shoulders, and Derek, who lisped.

“I don't need my silver polished to a fare-thee-well, nor my rugs beaten to a pulp,” he told the assembled servants. “I need pens and troughs and sheds, and fields ready to be planted come spring in pig fodder. I need drainage ditches dug, roof tiles replaced, roads graded. I'll understand if you wish to stay as footmen in your warm jobs and clean livery, but you can't stay here. I cannot support you, not with all the additional men I'll need. You'll get references and your pay. If you decide to stay on, there will be a rotating schedule of housework and field jobs, and I promise a return to your usual positions as soon as circumstances permit.”

Most of the footmen accepted, knowing how few jobs there were these days, and so did the young grooms, the tenants who were behind in the rents, and whatever out-of-work villagers Johnny could find. With a few experienced lumbermen hired on from Farley, the Earl of Stanford and his crew sallied forth.

In no time at all, fence posts were being cut, and fingers. Shed poles were being raised, and blisters. Shovels, axes, and saws were being employed, and muscles long unused to such hard physical labor. The Earl of Stanford was right there with the men, digging holes and splitting wood or loading fallen trees onto wagons for the lumber mill.

Sweaty and sore, his clothes in muddy tatters, his only pair of boots scored and scraped, the once-fastidious earl was thinking that an heiress mightn't be such a bad thing. Which was a good thing, for Sidwell came out to tell him that Lady Prudlow and her granddaughters had arrived for tea.

* * *

He tried, he really did. He made polite conversation, he made insincere compliments. With a Prudlow sister on either arm, he made a tour of the portrait gallery. They giggled and tittered; he shut his ears. For all his attempts to kindle a spark of interest in his own breast, the earl kept wishing he was back in the fields with the men. For all his sipping catlap and nibbling macaroons, he couldn't even tell which Prudlow chit was Priscilla, which Patricia. At least Miss Westcott had a bit of presence.

Just as he was wishing the sisters and their garrulous grandmother to Jericho, Cobb the butler came into the drawing room, his wig askew. It seemed there was a commotion of some sort in the hallway, and without the legions of footmen, he was forced to handle things himself. Could his lordship be so kind as to step outside a moment?

Kerry went, followed by his curious female relatives and their even more rudely inquisitive guests. Derek, the footman who lisped, was trying to deal with box after box being unloaded from a hired carriage that was drawn up at the front door. Diccon was underfoot, for his temporary nanny, Jeffers, was outside doing the unloading, and Lucky was barking. Simpson, the footman elevated to valet just that morning, had taken one look at the names on the boxes—Weston, Stultz, Hobbes—and had gone to join the men in the fields.

“What the—?” Kerry recognized the formal tailcoat he'd ordered before leaving town, but these carefully folded shirts, waistcoats, and breeches couldn't be the clothes Demby was to have cleaned and sent on if the smell of smoke came out. Kerry's whole wardrobe could have been contained in a small trunk, not this mountain of apparel in boxes bearing the names of London's best outfitters.

“There is a letter, my lord.” Cobb held out a silver salver.

“Will you excuse me, ladies?” Kerry asked, hinting the women back into the drawing room to continue their tea. “Perhaps Diccon could have a raspberry tart, Aunt Clara?” No one left, and Diccon continued chasing Lucky through the piles of parcels, trying to get a brand-new York tan glove out of the pup's mouth. The Prudlow sisters giggled while their grandmother surveyed the scene through her pince-nez. Aunt Clara was admiring one particularly fancy waistcoat embroidered with forget-me-nots, and Lady Stanford was fuming.

“You can't afford a few piddling gaming debts, eh?” she hissed in his ear, punctuating her remarks with a jab to his midsection. “A ball is too expensive, eh?” Another jab. “You can't finance an adequate household staff, what? But you can rig yourself out like a caper merchant, is that it?”

Kerry stepped aside before she punctured his abdomen. “I swear I had nothing to do with this. If I may be permitted to read the note?”

She didn't give permission; he withdrew to the steps and read anyway.

Demby—for the note was indeed from the earl's former valet, groom, et cetera—wrote about winning the firemen's benevolent raffle lottery, which Kerry already knew. He was sorry, but he would not be returning to the earl's service, which Kerry also knew. Demby was buying a partnership in a small foundry, where he hoped to set up a studio and shop, to work on his sculpture. This was not very surprising, considering the man's revelations on the night of the fire. What was amazing to his lordship was Demby's next line, that he wished to share some of his windfall with his former employer. Not only had Lord Stanford given him the winning ticket, Demby wrote, and saved his life to boot, but the earl had also given him employment where he was free to practice his art. (No mention was made of Demby's feigned tremors, nor the fact that the job was practically a volunteer position in recent times.)

In return, Demby wished to show his appreciation. But how? He knew his lordship's casual attitude toward money, that the earl would lose whatever Demby sent before the ink was dry on the check. He was taking the liberty, therefore, of sending along those recently ordered replacement items for Lord Stanford's wardrobe, and a few additions.

Kerry looked around. Those few additions included enough satin knee breeches to clothe an Almack's gathering, enough lace and linen cravats to strangle the House of Lords, and enough beaver hats to cause extinction of the species. Nightshirts, stockings, dancing slippers, nothing was overlooked—except sturdy boots, woolen shirts, heavy fustian trousers, and a frieze coat for carrying hogmash.

Sitting down on the marble steps amid all that splendor, Kerry threw his head back and laughed. The roof was literally falling down around his head, he hardly had a pot to put his pigs in, debts were piled atop obligations, and he'd be dressed better than Beau Brummell. He laughed even harder when Diccon and Lucky knocked over a box containing a stack of silk drawers. He held one pair aloft, sending all three Prudlow ladies scurrying for the door, and gasped, “And they said you couldn't make a silk purse out of a sow's earl!”

When he finished wiping his eyes, the hallway was empty of everyone but Lucy, who was shaking her finger reprovingly. “That was not well done of your lordship.” But her lips twitched. “If there was anyone in the neighborhood who hadn't heard you had a draft in the rafters, they'll be informed by nightfall. And those were nice girls you just chased away!”

“They were ninnyhammers, and you know it. Why, marriage to a peahen like that would send me hieing back to London and one expensive mistress after another, so where would be the benefit? Not in morals, not in the pocketbook. Be content for now, I'll be the best-dressed pig farmer in Wiltshire.”

“Just don't go getting puffed up with your own conceit again,” she warned. “Your nose hasn't healed yet.”

* * *

The earl went to bed early that night, throwing out his new valet, lisp and all, before Derek was through the unpacking. Kerry'd been up since dawn at hard physical labor, and had to face Lord Westcott, his hunt, and Hellraker in the morning. Mostly, though, he was hoping Lucy would come again. He was eager to see if his hard day's work met with her approval, if there'd been any change in her appearance to match his blisters and scrapes.

He laughed at himself, inventing excuses to look at Lucy. Why, he hardly took his eyes off her when she was in the room. She fascinated him, he admitted, all innocence and passion combined. He'd never known a woman like her, and not just because she was a specter. If he had to choose a wife, that was the type of woman he wanted, halfway between devil and angel, not some milk-and-water miss like the Prudlow girls. They could never hold a candle to Lucy anyway. A man wouldn't get bored with a female like Lucinda Faire, with her challenging mind and caring nature. And honesty. Why, no woman had ever said she liked him before. There was flattery aplenty, and protestations of undying love, especially outside the jewelry shops, but never simple, honest liking. A man could even trust a female like that, as opposed to a Miss Westcott, whose motives must ever be suspect.

Lucy was a
real
woman. No, blast it, she wasn't a real woman at all. If he tried to touch her, his hands would go right through. If he tried to hold her, call her, keep her, she just danced through his dreams the way she drifted through his life, turning everything upside down.

And he needed a woman, especially after thinking of Lucy, even if he did not need a wife. Celibacy was not Kerry's strong point, nor a virtue he saw much point in pursuing, except that
she
was sure to appear then, and not now, when he wanted her company. Lucy would be steaming mad, singeing him—if not his privates—with her scorn.

The thought did much toward cooling his ardor. Perhaps he could live without a woman's services for a while after all, especially if he had Lucy's lively conversation and luscious form to admire.

She never came.

Kerry rolled over and went to sleep, thinking the hell with her. And dreamed of her anyway.