An Angel for the Earl (16 page)

“Are you very unhappy here, then?” she wanted to know.

Kerry had to think for a minute, as if happiness had never entered into his considerations before. For all the fuss and bother, he was not unhappy here, no. He had to admit, in fact, that he'd never felt more alive, more purposeful, more in command of his own destiny before. He didn't have to admit that to Lucy, of course. Let her agonize a little after that fiasco with the fox.

“And where the deuce were you last night anyway?” he brusquely demanded. “If I'm stuck here for the nonce, I at least deserve some intelligent conversation.”

“Oh, I was trying to answer your question about Aunt Clara's ghost. He's the second earl, poor man. You think you have problems! Why, he—”

The earl held up his hand. “No, don't tell me. I have more than enough difficulties laid in my dish without adding his. The rubies, the roof, Uncle Nigel—it's endless. If the second earl has been haunting the Abbey for the past century or so, I'm sure his situation is beyond my repair.”

“I thought a Somerfield never backs down from a challenge.”

“That's our motto, all right. A Somerfield never backs down, but he doesn't have to stand up either.”

Chapter Eighteen

The direction of the vicar's sermon was that charity begins at home. The direction of the vicar's gaze seemed to indicate that charity ought to begin in the front pew.

And a dashed uncomfortable pew it was, too, Kerry thought, shifting his weight on the hard wooden bench next to his mother. Too bad the Brownes had refused to stay another day; perhaps they would have provided seat cushions in exchange for a few prayers of rejoicing in their son's recovery. Right now Kerry could use a pillow far more than another rug for the Grosvenor Square house.

And too bad the Brownes had refused his offer of that mongrel pup. Not in the City, they told him, with not too much regret. Even Diccon, the little traitor, thought Lucky would be happier in the country with his friend Hellraker. So now Kerry had the mixed breed trailing him and the stallion when they rode out. The earl swore Lucky's lolling tongue was a grin at his efforts to control the ill-humored horse.

The vicar was going on about feeding the hungry. Hades, Kerry thought, if the hefty cleric passed up second helpings, there'd be enough to feed half the village needy, whose eyes were also fixed on the front pew. Kerry couldn't help but be aware of the stares from the back rows of the little church, stares fastened on his superfine coat, biscuit pantaloons, and marcella waistcoat. Many of the parishioners were in ragged homespun, the women with threadbare shawls for warmth. Confound Demby! Kerry noted that neither Flint, the Prudlows, nor the Westcotts went to services here. They chose to attend the grander church in Farley, where their furs and furbelows would not make such a contrast. If Goldy Flint prayed here, he swore, they'd not be sitting on bare benches.

Then the earl's gaze drifted to the choir, where one voice was raised higher than all the others in joyful praise. Lucy was singing with the local members, standing out both in her brightly colored gown amid their white robes, and her slightly off-key rendition. The gown was almost a pinky-coral, far too dashing for church, but her hair was neatly coiled atop her head in a golden-copper halo of braids. And she looked happy as a grig.

That smile of hers shook his heart to its shaky foundations.

She was just a slip of a thing, Kerry reasoned, not a statuesque beauty like Miss Westcott; that was why he had an overwhelming desire to shelter her from sorrow, protect her from the world's evils, keep her smiling radiantly.

Dash it, he reminded himself, Lucy was not some vulnerable little schoolgirl. This she-devil could throw thunderbolts! She needed his looking after as much as he needed another indigent relative.

Still, when he shook the vicar's hand after the service, the earl found himself offering his work crew and some extra lumber to rebuild the church stairs. He also thought the abbey kitchens lost far too much to spoilage. Surely Cook could provide baskets of leftovers for the poor, rather than throw the foodstuffs away.

Of course that meant he'd have to find more slops for the hogs if table scraps were out, but Lucy's singing echoed in his ear the whole carriage ride home, sweet and only a little sour.

“Don't go getting in alt over this,” he told her later, after spending all of that afternoon on what the vicar was pleased to call God's work, thus excusing the Sunday labor. Many of the locals, like Charlie the blacksmith and McGivven at the mercantile, had their own jobs to do on Monday, so they worked past dinner completing the stairs. They all supped on food the village women prepared from what Kerry had sent down from the Abbey. The dowager's dinner or not, it tasted better in the common room at Ned's pub.

“Why shouldn't I be pleased?” Lucinda insisted, wishing she could rub his sore shoulders as he groaned from the depths of a comfortable chair in the Abbey's library.

“Because it's not permanent, I told you. This doing good deeds and leading an exemplary life is not natural to me. Besides, it's all in my own self-interest anyway, don't you know.”

She smiled. “Can't you confess you are doing something worthwhile just for its own sake?”

“What, like fixing the church steps so I don't break my neck next Sunday?” He put his feet up on a footstool and sighed.

“Like asking the vicar about starting a school.”

“What's wrong with trying to lower my poor taxes by getting some of these people off the dole? I am a self-centered, arrogant, overdressed cod's-head, remember?”

“You forgot pigheaded. You are a good man, you just won't admit it. You wouldn't have been given this chance if there were no seed of decency to be nurtured. Know thyself, Kieren Somerfield.”

“What about ‘to thine own self be true'? I fear you're in for a big disappointment. What if at heart I really am a wastrel and a womanizer?”

“Then at least the church steps got fixed.”

* * *

Not altogether discontent despite his warnings, Kerry settled back to enjoy a rest of the righteous weary, and the sight of Lucy worrying over her lists. She was tallying virtues versus vices, he supposed, the way Sidwell juggled assets and debits, but Sidwell never bit his tongue in concentration, at least not that Kerry ever noticed or cared. Nor did the earl believe he'd be satisfied to sit watching his secretary for any length of time. Lucy he could watch for hours, even if her hair was no longer trailing down her back in wanton disarray and her gown was no longer as diaphanous as an insect's wing. The grace of her movements, the rise and fall of her breaths, the softness of her cheek—

Well, he wasn't
terribly
discontented with the upright life. He had no urge to wager his watch on the roll of the dice or his last shillings on the speed of a raindrop, for instance. There was no burning ache for a cigarillo or a second, third, or fourth glass of brandy. And he didn't even want a woman, not too badly. Kerry laughed aloud at that thought, and the sound was so cheerful, Lucy laughed, too.

Tap-tap.
The library door burst open before the earl could call “Enter.” The dowager countess strode into the room, glaring into the shadowy corners. Aunt Clara hung back by the door, looking cautiously around.

“Just as I thought,” the earl's mother declared, “there is no one in here with you.” She crossed her arms across her chest. “I demand you stop this absurd habit at once.”

Kerry had politely if stiffly risen at her entrance. “I always thought it a foolish practice myself, hopping up and down each time a lady stands. Won't you have a seat? You, too, Aunt Clara. Shall I ring for tea?”

Lady Stanford claimed the chair closest to the fireplace, where Lucy had been sitting. “Not that habit, you jackanapes. I mean this deplorable habit of speaking to yourself, as you well know. You already have the servants, what there are left of them, thinking you ready for a restraining device. You cannot wish the Westcotts to hear of this lunatic behavior. Bad enough they think you cannot sit a horse.”

Aunt Clara arranged her black skirts and shawls onto the nearby sofa. “Were you speaking with Nigel, dear?” she wanted to know.

“No, it seems there is only one apparition allowed per customer. Have you ever actually seen Uncle Nigel, Aunt Clara?”

“Why, no, dear, I only hear his voice. Does your, ah, friend appear, in person, as it were?”

“Stop it, both of you!” The dowager shrieked, stamping her feet. “Clara might be the village eccentric, and my cross to bear, but I shall not have my son making such a cake of himself, do you hear me?”

“I am surprised Miss Westcott cannot hear you, Mother,” Kerry said, getting up to close the door.

“Be sure she'll hear about this aberration of yours soon enough. Then you'll lose the gel for sure.”

“Lose her? I hardly know her, Mother.”

“What's that to the purpose? I never met your father until we joined hands at the altar.”

No one commented on the success of that union. Aunt Clara leaned forward and asked, “But you do like Miss Westcott, don't you, dear?”

“She's a nice enough female, as far as debutantes go. I suppose I shan't mind dancing with her at that assembly tomorrow.”

“You'd better do a dashed sight more than dance with her, my boy,” the dowager cautioned. “You'd better fix her interests all right and tight.”

“Your mother is correct, dear. For once. Faint heart ne'er won fair lady, and all that.”

“What, you, too, Aunt Clara? I said I'd dance with her. I cannot see rushing into anything more permanent for at least another meeting or two,” he tried to joke. No one laughed.

Aunt Clara twisted a handkerchief in her hands. “I'm afraid there isn't time, dear. Rumor has it that Lord Westcott refuses to take Felicia back to London. Doesn't want to miss any more hunting, they say. Westcott's butler told Lady Prudlow's head groom that the marquis thinks another season would be a waste, since she turned down all the eligible partis, and that duke did not come up to scratch.”

Lady Stanford took up the story: “So that twiddlepoop Westcott will be looking to get the gal fired off right here. If you don't snatch up the chit, he's liable to hitch Felicia to the first respectable beau, someone like Johnny Norris or something.”

“So what? There will be other pretty girls, other heiresses.”

“Oh, no, you wouldn't want to lose Miss Westcott, dear. So suitable. So dignified and polite. The way a countess should be.”

Lady Stanford ignored the jibe. “You skip-brain, you don't have time to find another dowry. Bride, I mean. This is November. Have you forgotten that the next round of mortgage payments is due in January?”

Kerry had. He'd been thinking of what he could accomplish in the next week or so, for Lucy's sake, and in the long range, for income's sake. There was no way he could meet the payment due.

He almost missed his mother's next words: “My annuity is paid out in January, thank goodness, but you cannot expect help from me. I'll have to use my income to redeem my jewels, since you haven't seen fit to show your mother the respect due. So if you don't manage to snabble an heiress this month or next, we'll be living in your confounded pigpens, eating scraps.”

“No, I am giving the table scraps to the poor.” Kerry got up and started pacing.

“You gossoon, we are the poor!”

“I am impoverished, Mother; you do not need to be. You could be living in comfort in the Dower House if you hadn't squandered your annuity.”

“You dare criticize me for a few paltry gambling debts? What happened to
your
income all these years?”

“Touché. Very well, I shall try to get to know your Miss Westcott at the assembly, to see if we suit. I am not making any promises, mind.”

Aunt Clara came over to pat his hand before ringing for tea. “I'm sure you'll do everything proper, dear.”

After Cobb wheeled in the tea cart and Lady Stanford poured, Kerry asked, “Will there be cards at this gathering, Mother?”

Lady Stanford looked as if she'd swallowed a lemon. “Why, do you hope to win a fortune instead of marrying one? That hasn't worked for you yet, Kieren.”

“No, Mother, I shall be too busy doing my duty by the young ladies, inspecting their pedigrees, their bank balances, their teeth. Perhaps their hips for breeding.”

Aunt Clara giggled into her cup. Lady Stanford returned hers to its saucer with a clatter.

“No,” Kerry went on, “I was wondering about the cards for your sake, Mother, since the Stanford flaw seems to be transmitted through the marriage vows as well as through the blood.” He swallowed the last of a cherry tart, his favorite, and carefully wiped his fingers on a serviette. “I shouldn't wish to see you sending us deeper into the River Tick while I am struggling to keep us afloat. If I so much as see you with a pasteboard in your hand, I'll tell Lady Westcott that your diamonds are fake.”

Aunt Clara chimed in: “And I'll tell your beau Goldy that your bosoms are fake.”

“Why, you jealous cat! Just because you never had a real man show any interest in you—”

“Real man, that shady character in corsets? How dare you compare that thatch-gallows to my sainted Nigel?”

“More tea, ladies?” Kerry asked before aspersions flew along with the Spode china. Aunt Clara held out her cup, but the dowager excused herself on account of the late hour.

“Some of us need our beauty sleep if we are to look our best for the assembly. Others wouldn't be helped by a week's rest.”

After the door slammed shut, the earl turned to his aunt. “Aunt Clara, what if, hypothetically of course, Uncle Nigel turned out to be not such a paragon? If your hero had feet of clay? Would you still love him?”

“Oh, you are worried that you might discover later that Miss Westcott is pettish in the mornings or that she snores. Of course you would still love her, dear. I didn't know everything about dear Nigel before we were wed. It wouldn't have been at all the thing. But that's what love is, taking the bad with the good.” Just when Kerry was about to breathe a sigh of relief, she added, “Naturally, however, I would never love a black-hearted rogue in the first place.”

Naturally. “And, ah, you are certain it is Uncle Nigel chatting with you?”

“Quite certain, dear. Who else knows so much about the Abbey? I'm sure if it was your father, he'd be haunting
her.
Then again, he hardly spoke to her when he was alive, so why would he bother now?”