How I Met My Countess (14 page)

The duchess’s features never changed—the stern set of her jaw and the determined light in her eyes—and that was answer enough.

She did mean it. Their house. All three of them. Together.

Then came a wary exchange of glances between Minerva, Elinor and Lucy, like a trio of alley cats squaring off over a scrap of dropped mutton.

And that was what this house was, Lucy knew without a doubt, a scrap of week-old mutton in the middle of Mayfair, with its bare rooms and peeling paper. And so she joined into the chorus of yowling protests that erupted through the foyer without any thought of propriety.

“Your Grace, there cannot be room here for all of us to live—”

“You cannot mean to take away my dowry rights! If you think I will stand for this—”

“This is banishment! I will write the duke, for I doubt he would cousin such outrageous, nay, scandalous treatment of his—”

The duchess whirled around and shook her finger at Minerva. “That is exactly why you are being ‘banished’ here. The duke and I are tired of your petty squabbling, fighting and ridiculous demands—”

“We have rights,” Elinor interjected. “Our marriage contracts specifically give us—”

Wheeling around, the duchess was ready, sounding like the most pernicious, stubborn solicitor that ever graced the Inns of Court. “Have you read your marriage contract?”

This took Elinor aback. “Read it? Why would I have read it, I know exactly what I am due—”

“Apparently you don’t,” the duchess interjected. “For your marriage contracts do not give you the right to beggar the duke with your outrageous requests, scandalous outbursts, constant orders and high-handed ultimatums.”

“But you cannot—” Minerva began, but then, just as quickly, she stopped, for apparently she hadn’t read hers either.

Still, Lucy couldn’t fathom Minerva’s father, the previous Earl of Gilston, ever signing a contract that could possibly leave his only daughter to the capricious whims of the Sterling family.

Then again …

Felicity tugged at her gloves, then patted at her bonnet, the plumes bowing in perfect unison. “From this date forward, this is the Sterling dowager house and your only address.” She paused and glanced at Minerva and Elinor as if challenging them to contradict her.

But for all her good sense, that didn’t stop Lucy from wading in. For while Minerva and Elinor had family connections and solicitors at the ready to join their howls of protest over this unconscionable situation, Lucy had no one to carry her banner into this fight.

Save herself.

Save him
, a voice whispered.
What of him?

Hadn’t he just said, not half an hour earlier,
“If you ever have need of anything, you or Thomas-William, please do not hesitate to contact me.”

Lucy straightened. She’d rather live with Minerva for the remainder of her days than go crawling to Clifton.

“Your Grace, I beg of you, what of my household? Of Mickey?” Lucy asked, using every bit of manners she possessed. “You cannot mean to say that we must share this residence with Minerva and Elinor and their servants?”

Without even batting an eye, the duchess nodded.

And before there was a new explosion of protests, there was an explosion of another sort. From upstairs came a terrified chorus of yelps from the dogs, followed by a cloud of black, sooty smoke. After a few moments of shocked silence, a coal-stained Tia came down the steps, a dog under each arm and another following on her heels with its tail between its legs.

“It all happened so fast,” she stammered, awkwardly pointing up the stairs.

Lucy cringed. It always did where Mickey was concerned.

“Mickey decided to see if Ivo would fit up the chimney, since he himself could not.” Tia tried to hand one of the filthy dogs to her sister, but Elinor backed away in horror at the soot-covered terrier, which would surely ruin her new gown as it had Tia’s more modest one.

Thomas-William appeared at the top of the steps, Mickey under one arm, being carried in much the same fashion as Tia carried the dogs.

And like the dogs, Mickey was howling for all to hear. “I thought he could climb. Weren’t my fault that darn thing got stuck. Tommy Saunders has a dog that climbs the chimney, and it’s just an old mutt.”

There was a low groan from Lucy, while Elinor whirled about to face the duchess.

“You cannot expect me to live like this, with that—” Her finger shook at Mickey with a trembling fury. “That—”

“Rather dirty child,” the duchess said, glancing at the boy. “Thomas-William, would you please take Master Ellyson downstairs and acquaint him with Mrs. Hutchinson, the cook. She’ll be able to provide you with enough hot water to wash both the child and Lady Standon’s dogs.”

“A bath!” Mickey howled. “I don’t want a bath.” Felicity laughed. “Then don’t climb about the chimneys like some lad off the streets. Be a good boy now, and I am sure Mrs. Hutchinson will reward you with a ginger biscuit.”

“Two biscuits,” Mickey told her, as Thomas-William followed Mr. Mudgett to the kitchens. “Or I’ll make enough noise to bring the watch.”

“I believe you’ve already accomplished that,” the duchess called after him. She turned to Lucy. “You’ve a solicitor in the making there. Negotiating his punishment, indeed!”

She wiped her hands over her skirt, as if washing herself of this errand, then turned to leave, but this time, Minerva stepped into her path.

“You cannot mean to do this to me. To abandon me here in this wretched house? Leave me here with … with these … these …”

Lucy almost pitied her, for she’d never heard Minerva sound so, well, unnerved.

“Members of your family?” Felicity supplied. “Why yes, indeed I do. I happened to have lived in this very house with my sister and cousin before I married the duke, and if it was quite acceptable for us then, I see no impediment to you residing here now.”

“I won’t,” Minerva said, shaking from head to toe. “I won’t stand for this. There must be some other way.”

“You are welcome to leave,” Felicity told her. “But realize that you leave this house with the understanding that you forfeit your allowance for good. Not a single ha-penny more will you ever receive from the duke.”

Elinor gasped, for apparently she’d already been making her plans for a hasty escape.

Minerva wavered. “You’d have us cut off?”

“Completely,” Felicity said with the same hard manner as a Seven Dials landlady.

“But why? However can you do such a thing to me? To us? Whatever have we done to deserve such high-handed treatment?”

“High-handed?” the duchess said, her voice deathly calm.

It sent a shiver down Lucy’s spine. Oh, she’d always known that one day she’d have to face a reckoning, but at the duchess’s hand?

No, she would rather have been hit by a mail coach this morning and be well on her way to another sort of reckoning than face this.

“You should have thought of what high-handed means, Lady Standon,” the duchess continued, “before you fired off your last letter to the duke. And you as well,” she added, looking at the second Lady Standon. “Your letter arrived the very same day. Complaining about your portions and needs, as if you lived in squalor. Hardly the behavior of ladies, let alone members of the Sterling family. That, and the mounting gossip regarding your ridiculous squabbles and feuds have made you three—and His Grace in turn—the laughingstocks of London, and I will not have it.”

Lucy looked down at her boots. Try as she might to tell herself she certainly hadn’t had a hand in any of this, an all-too-familiar twinge of guilt ran down her spine.

Keeping Mickey. Not adhering to perfect social conventions. Traveling from house to house and leaving outraged relations and wreckage in her wake.

“Yes, yes, some of us have behaved with a lack of decorum,” Elinor said, once again placing all the blame at Lucy’s doorstep, “but there must be some way to resolve this.”

Lucy guessed Elinor’s solution involved some remote Scottish island where Lucy and her companions would be abandoned like castaways.

The duchess stepped around Minerva, who found herself unable to move, the shock of her situation sinking in.

“There is, Lady Standon,” the duchess assured her, opening the door and stepping outside into the crisp sunshine of a cold February day. “Get married.”

“Married?” they all three exclaimed in unison. “Yes, married,” the duchess said. “Oh, heavens, I nearly forgot.” She reached inside her reticule and pulled out a leather-bound journal. Placing it on the pedestal that sat beside the door, the one usually reserved for the receiving salver, her hand lay atop it for a few moments, as if she wasn’t all too sure she wanted to leave it behind. But eventually she did, and she offered her stunned audience a smile. “That is my
Bachelor Chronicles
. Use it with my blessings. It contains the names, particulars and penchants of all the eligible noblemen in England. Find a husband and you will no longer have any need to reside here on Brook Street.”

“What if I have no desire to wed?” Minerva asked in tones that said all too clearly she was outraged beyond comprehension.

The duchess shrugged. “Then I would make myself at home—for it shall be just that for some duration.”

“My dear boy, there is nothing left to do but propose to the chit and be done with the matter,” the Marquess of Penwortham said, loudly enough for half of White’s to hear.

Luckily for the Earl of Clifton, there was quite a stir going on around the betting book, so his uncle’s booming voice drew little attention from the raucous crowd across the way.

“The wars are over,” Penwortham continued, adding hastily, “thanks be to God. And now that they are, you must get on with your most sacred of duties—begetting an heir, which begins with getting married to Lady Annella. You just need to draw upon that infamous courage Wellington was boasting about the other day and get the deed done.”

Yes, yes, he knew all that. But that was the rub; Clifton hadn’t the bottom to take that next step and propose. If you had asked him yesterday, he wouldn’t have been able to put a name on his reluctance, why he couldn’t force that final question past his lips.

Reaching for his glass, he took a long swallow of the amber whisky. It ran down his throat like a raw fire, echoing the one name that was at the heart of his trouble.

Lucy.

He glanced toward the shuttered window and took a deep breath. Dear God, he’d found her. His Goosie.

Perhaps it was why he was here at White’s and not at the Nesfield musicale this evening paying homage to Lady Annella’s talents at the pianoforte.

The sight of Lucy standing there on the steps of Lady Standon’s house had bowled him over. Thrown him better than his horse could have.

Lucy Ellyson
. He reached for his glass again.

He’d lied to her today. Told her he owed a debt to her father—well, that wasn’t entirely untrue; he did owe a good measure of his survival on the Continent to George Ellyson—but it was Lucy who had been the bright light who had carried him through the darkest days.

And there had been any number of those.

The memory of her smile. The sharp light of her eyes.

Her kiss … her sighs … her touch …

“Well, there is naught to do but finalize the settlements with her father and propose, eh, Clifton?” Penwortham was saying, oblivious to his nephew’s inattentiveness. The large man settled even more deeply into his chair—not a good sign in Clifton’s estimation. “My boy, the girl is a veritable angel. Sweet, even-tempered. Rather like her mother—who I knew when I was just a strapping young man—thought to marry her myself. But no matter, her daughter will be the perfect Lady Clifton—just as my sister was to your father—and very like your mother, she comes with everything a man of your position needs: impeccable bloodlines, the right connections and a dowry that your estates could use, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Clifton did mind, but there was no use pointing out the obvious. Lady Annella had those qualities and more.

Everything Lucy Ellyson had never possessed.

Except her hold on his heart.

Which, up until tonight, he thought he could ignore.

What he couldn’t forget was that his estates were in terrible straits. The uncle who’d had charge of them had died shortly after Clifton had gone overseas. Penwortham, his mother’s brother, had been assured by the steward that all was well in hand, while the rapscallion fellow had neglected all and pocketed what he could.

Clifton was duty-bound to see his tenants and lands brought to rights.

Just as it had been his duty to serve his King and country.

That was his lot in life, duty and honor. To serve. To keep his place in Society.

And to marry.

It all seemed so nice and orderly. So easily done.

Yet what had serving his country done for him? It had cost him his brother’s life. Malcolm was gone. The estate, the fields and tracts he loved were fallow and rotting.

So all that was left to do was marry and marry well, and everyone—from his uncle to his solicitor to even his housekeeper, Mrs. Calliwick—seemed to think that was the balm to quell his unrest.

And while they all thought his disquiet had to do with his years at war, it had everything to do with the trip he’d made to Hampstead just after Malcolm had died.

His heart broken, his body exhausted from two years of hiding and working undercover on the Continent, he’d come back to Hampstead seeking the one balm he’d known would restore his soul.

Lucy’s love. Her smile. Her rare temper. Her fire.

He’d needed her like a starving man needed sustenance.

Instead, he’d found strangers in the old Ellyson house, a couple who’d known nothing of the former tenants. But he had been able to locate Mrs. Kewin’s sister, an aged lady in her dotage and not completely within her wits.

Still, she’d invited him into her small cottage and begged him to sit in her best chair, as she’d settled into a smaller one by the fire.

“You’ve come seeking the Ellysons, have you?”

“Yes, ma’am. I am an old friend of the family.”