How I Met My Countess (18 page)

Malcolm’s missing will.

There is more to this
, he could almost hear George Ellyson advising.
There is always more to a situation than meets the eye.

What that “more” could be, Clifton hadn’t the vaguest notion.

Like why Lucy had married Archie Sterling. Jack’s assertion that she’d done so for “demmed good reasons” had done something to him. It had chipped at his resolve, and he found himself having to shore up his ironclad belief that all she’d ever had to do was wait.

Wait as he’d done all these long years.

Still …
There was something he was missing. Something he was forgetting.

As he walked down Bond Street toward his appointment with his uncle, he set his jaw, filled with a determination to cry off from any further entanglements with Lady Annella, then get the answers he sought.

All of them.

“Ah!” Penwortham declared when he spotted his nephew coming down the block. “You have done me proud, my boy. Stewie Hodges bet me a monkey you wouldn’t show today, and now not only am I glad to see you but I’m a bit richer to boot.”

“Yes, well, about Lady Annella—” Clifton began.

“Lovely girl, good bloodlines, and that enormous …” Penwortham went right into his usual litany of the chit’s attributes as he fell in step alongside Clifton, that is until he eyed Clifton’s attire. “You need a better tailor, my boy. That coat is dreadful.”

Clifton glanced down at the plain navy super-fine he preferred.

“You need some dash. Some savoir faire. I would have thought all those years on the Continent would have given you some style.”

“Uncle!” Clifton said. “Enough. This coat is well cut, and if Lady Annella doesn’t like me because of my coat, then she is not the lady for me.”

How could he explain to his utterly English uncle that he hadn’t been dining in Versailles or lolling about Venice? No, Clifton had spent most of that time in some of the worst gutters and sewers that Europe had to offer.

They came up to the shop where they were to meet up with Lady Asterby and her daughter, and Penwortham turned to him. “Now remember, be nice to the gel. A little less reserve and a little more charm would serve you well.”

Malcolm’s exact advice from all those years ago. He could still hear Lucy’s censure of him.
“Mark my words, he is a stuffy, arrogant, overbearing …”

She’d been right. Then again, Lucy wouldn’t care about his coat, wouldn’t care for his lack of dash. She’d never cared for those things. She’d forced him to discover the entire world around him, not just the chosen and carefully culled environs of Society.

How many times had Lucy’s lessons in larceny and cheating saved his life? He’d stopped counting.

And she’ll save you again.

He shook off the shiver that ran down his spine and paused beside his uncle in front of the shop. At the curb sat his carriage, waiting for him just as he’d ordered.

Thankfully, his uncle was so consumed with his matchmaking that he failed to notice his nephew’s escape route at hand.

“There she is,” Penwortham said with a nudge to Clifton’s ribs. “Your countess.”

But it wasn’t Lady Annella that Clifton saw. Nor would Lady Annella ever hold his heart. Not when she stood a little more than five feet away from Lucy Ellyson.

I don’t love her still,
he lied to himself as he entered the shop.
I don’t.

“What you ask, my lady, I cannot do. Not for all zee duke’s money,” Madame Verbeck said in a loud affronted voice to Bedelia when she asked, nay demanded, that the lady herself attend to them.

“Whatever is she saying?” Aunt Bedelia asked Lucy, for Elinor and Minerva had fled to the far reaches of the shop. “I never can understand these foreign sorts.”

“She has other customers to attend to first. I believe Lady Asterby and her daughter had an appointment for this morning.”

“Of all the high-handed … ,” Aunt Bedelia sputtered, coming forward. “Appointments are for cits. Now see here, Madame, we will be—”

Lucy edged out of her way, for if anyone was high-handed, it was this Aunt Bedelia of Minerva’s. No wonder Minerva moved about so much, if only to keep out of the lady’s clutches.

For ignoring their protests over getting married, Aunt Bedelia would suffer no delays to her plans for them. She’d ordered them all to come shopping.

“A woman can’t go looking for a husband without the right artillery,” she declared.

Apparently Aunt Bedelia’s third husband had been a military man and had left her with a penchant for strategizing.

Lucy continued to back away from the brewing tempest at the counter and nearly bowled over a petite young lady, all ribbons and delicate curls. “Oh, excuse me,” she said as she tried to move around the imperious miss.

But the girl wasn’t listening, for she had turned to a woman who happened to be an older copy of her. “Maman, why is Papa so set on this marriage?”

“Because you’ll be a countess, you foolish girl.”

The girl sighed, looking anything but impressed.

You’ll be a countess …

Those words sent a shiver down Lucy’s spine. Hadn’t he promised as much? That he would return for her? Marry her? Make her his countess.

She should have demanded answers from Clifton yesterday when she’d come face-to-face with him. She should have …

“… now remember to smile,” the matron was saying. “This betrothal is all but assured, you just have to catch his eye, and how couldn’t you, my little angel?” The woman fluffed at the girl’s arrangement of curls and pinched her cheeks so they glowed a bit brighter. “He’s enchanted, I’m certain.”

“He merely seeks my dowry,” the girl said a bit petulantly.

“Yes, of course he does. And if it gets out that the earl is seeking a well-dowered lady to be his countess, then you’ll have to do more than just be the prettiest girl in the room. No, better you secure his affection tonight at Lady Gressingham’s soiree before the word gets out that he’s got pockets to let and wants a bride to fix his straits. It is an honor that he’s invited us to attend with him tonight—why, it makes his intentions quite clear.” The woman glanced around, her sharp gaze falling on Lucy and her lips pulled into a grim line. She shooed her daughter away. “There’s mushrooms enough in Society these days who would be more than delighted to have the Earl of Clifton as their son-in-law,” she said with a pointed glance toward Lucy.

“Clifton?” she gasped aloud, then covered her mouth at her unladylike gaffe.

Just then, Aunt Bedelia came bustling over. “Lucy! There you are. Madame has agreed to show you some silks she just got in from Paris, but we need you close at hand so we can determine which color suits.” She glanced over at the matron and her daughter. “Lady Asterby,” she said, nodding politely. “Lady Annella.”

“My lady,” the woman demurred, her daughter making a perfect curtsey, the sort learned in a Bath school.

They did not acknowledge Lucy, but then again, Lucy was used to being snubbed by the
ton
. Not that she cared what this old hen thought of her. She was too staggered by what she’d just learned.

Gilby was broke? And he sought to fix his woes by getting married? To this mealy-mouthed, spoiled chit?

Lucy ground her teeth together and tried to smile, for it meant he would hardly meddle in her affairs if he was about to be wed.

Yet something inside her broke anew at the thought of him entering a loveless marriage.

“Yes, well, come along, Lucy,” Lady Bedelia said, catching her by the arm. “Spiteful cat,” she muttered under her breath. “Never liked her.”

Lucy glanced over her shoulder and took another look at this perfect vision of elegance, this Lady Annella. Never would she believe that Clifton loved such a creature. Never.

“Is it true?” Lucy whispered to Bedelia, who, she was positive, would know the details of any situation. “That the Earl of Clifton is rolled up?”

“Broke? Oh, yes. His estates are in shambles.” Bedelia stopped at the counter and began to hold up the bolts of fabrics Madame Verbeck had brought from the back of the shop. “His father’s brother was to watch over the earl’s lands, but the poor man died, and there was no one else to manage things. At least not until Clifton returned.” The lady glanced across the shop at Lady Asterby and her daughter. “I’ve heard that he is all but betrothed to that gel, but it will be a poor match for him, I think. But what am I telling you for? I suppose you know Lord Clifton.”

Lucy glanced up, startled that Aunt Bedelia would know such a thing. “I-I … that is to say.”

The lady smiled and patted her hand, even as she set aside a green silk and passed over a blue. “Don’t look so shocked. Your father helped the Crown, as did Clifton. In the Foreign Office. I know all about it. My fourth husband was Lord Burnitt. He worked with that horrid fellow over there … oh, bother, what was his name?”

“Pymm?” Lucy offered.

“Yes, yes. That’s it. Pymm. Dreadful man. He and Burnitt drank together. I fear the bottle did my husband in, and how many times have I wished that it had been Pymm who’d drowned in a glass of gin? But that would have hardly served England’s interests and all, now wouldn’t it have?”

Lucy didn’t quite know what to say.

“Now where was I?” Aunt Bedelia asked—a question Lucy had no intention of answering, for she wanted desperately to change the subject lest this Bedelia be as astute as Minerva and discover the truth. “Oh, yes! The pink or the amaranthus?” she asked, holding both bolts up to examine against Lucy’s coloring.

“The pink,” a deep masculine voice declared. “As I remember, the lady is utterly enchanting in pink.”

Clifton had followed his uncle into the shop and done the unpardonable—he’d walked right past Lady Annella and straight to the one woman he knew could save him.

That, and Jack’s words still rang in his ears.

“Don’t marry the gel if you don’t love her. Marry for love, my good man, and you’ll never regret a single day of your life.”

And having looked from one perfectly coifed miss toward the lady who still claimed his heart despite all his attempts to banish her place there, it had been an easy choice.

“The pink,” he repeated, looking from the twinkling light of mischief in the older lady’s eyes to the more outraged one in Lucy’s.

“I don’t believe the choice is yours to make, my lord,” she said, looking over his shoulder toward the door.

Oh, you’ll not escape me so easily, Goosie
, he wanted to tell her.

What he wanted to do was demand answers from her, but he knew those would only meet with her stubborn pride. No, this was like a card game. He needed to tempt her, toy with her, lead her along and raise the stakes until there was nothing left to do but play the last hand.

And with Lucy, it was getting to that final hand that was the dangerous part.

So he took her firmly by the arm. “Madame,” he said, deferring to Bedelia, “do you mind if I borrow your friend? We are old acquaintances, and I would like a moment of her time.”

“Certainly, my lord,” the older lady said, smiling wickedly at him. “Lucy appears positively delighted to see you.” Then Bedelia nudged the scowling lady closer to him, giving Clifton leave to take his captive across the shop.

“How delightful this is, Lucy,” he said. “To run into you again so soon after our last encounter.”

“Oh, leave off the pleasantries, my lord. Whatever do you want?” She glanced over at Elinor and Minerva, but, much to her chagrin, they only smiled at her.

So much for the solidarity of friendship and standing together.

Why, they looked positively delighted to see her thusly. As if she should be back in the earl’s company.

Which she shouldn’t be. Couldn’t be …

“Why, Lucy, such a thing to say to an old friend.” He leaned closer and whispered in her ear, “Someone who held you in such close esteem.”

She glanced up at him warily.

“I believe you’ve mistaken me for someone else, my lord,” Lucy told him. “Someone who still holds you with some regard.” She nodded toward Lady Annella. “I would hate for you to come to a misunderstanding with your intended.”

“Oh, I believe what I intend to do next will ensure that there is no misunderstanding between us,” he said, moving swiftly to throw Lucy over his shoulder and cart her out of Madame Verbeck’s shop and into his waiting carriage.

I’ve got her. Drive on, Wort,” Lucy heard Clifton call out.

“The bloody hell you do!” Lucy sputtered as she struggled to right herself, for she’d landed face first on the far side seat. “If you think you can just steal me off like this—” Her words came to a halt and her fist froze midair, just before it landed on the Earl of Clifton’s all-too Roman, elegant nose.

He’d stolen her off.

Up until this moment, Lucy had been so angry that she hadn’t considered what it was he’d just done.

Or realized how hard her heart was hammering in her chest.

For as much as she liked to think she had forgotten what it had been like to be held in his arms, how it had made her every nerve come alive, she remembered now.

How she ached to have him take her in his arms again.

They sat there for a long moment, staring at each other. And Lucy realized two more things about him.

He hadn’t flinched.

And he was still the most handsome man she’d ever clapped eyes on.

Ever the smug, arrogant nobleman who’d loved her and left her all those years ago. So she finished what she’d started.

She pulled her fist back and punched him as hard as she could, drawing his cork like the best little scraper.

Because he thought her too much of a lady to actually hit him.

And because he’d stopped at merely tossing her inside his carriage and not come tumbling after her.

No, Lucy wanted to remind him as clearly as she could that she was no lady.

Not when it came to him.

The pain that shot through Clifton’s nose and left eye sent a shower of sparks dancing through his senses.

Demmed little vixen
.

She’d chopped him like a street bruiser. He put his hand to his throbbing eye and could feel it swelling shut. That, and he could feel the red sticky heat of blood in his nose.

That’s what he got for assuming that their past would stay that deadly right hook of hers.

Didn’t remember old Monday Moggs, did you, Gilby?
he could almost hear Malcolm laugh.

“What the hell was that for?” he said as he dug in his jacket for a handkerchief. He really didn’t want to bleed all over this jacket.

He couldn’t afford a new one.

Clifton shuddered and stuffed the linen square like a stopper into his nose, then shoved his legs across the carriage to block her escape.

Wily little monkey, she’d taken advantage of his momentary lapse and been about to jump right out of his barouche.

Keep your adversary at his wit’s end
, her father always used to say.
Upend him until you have the advantage
.

Lessons Lucy obviously still took to heart; never mind the peace accord over on the Continent.

He caught hold of her arm and shoved her back into her seat, which, thank God, she took, her arms crossed over her chest and a mighty glare aimed right at him.

Better her disapproval than that wicked and deadly right of hers.

“Do you know what sort of scene you caused back there?” Lucy’s eyes blazed.

“A ruinous one, I hope.” Then he had the temerity to grin at her.

“You’re stark raving mad! Let me go! Immediately!” she demanded with all the lofty air of a duchess.

He was in no mood to entertain her. “No.”

“No?” She shifted.

With only one good eye to watch her, Clifton wouldn’t have put it past her to shutter the other one closed if only to effect her escape.

“Did you say
no
?” she repeated.

There was a dangerous note to her question, one that as an intelligent man, an intelligent man who would be sporting an unexplainable black eye tomorrow—well, not entirely unexplainable— perhaps he should take heed of that warning with the same air of caution as one might a tolling bell.

Still, he relied on her father’s advice.

Have no cares that your enemy can discern. This is a dangerous game of chance you play.

“I did,” he told her as nonchalantly as if he had asked her if she wanted a glass of punch at Almack’s.

Well, perhaps not
punch
, per se, his eye and nose stinging soundly.

“How dare you kidnap me!”

“You did teach me the finer points.”

“I believe you have forgotten the finer points of taking someone. For I don’t remember any lesson that involved plucking a lady out of a crowded shop in broad daylight.”

“And here I thought I was being quite ingenious, subtle even.”

“Ingenious?” she sputtered. “You think kidnapping me in front of half of Bond Street subtle?” She blew out a loud, very unladylike breath. “ ’Tis a wonder you’re still alive!”

This was the Goosie he remembered. All bluster and full of spirit.

“Oh, I’ve managed to keep my head attached,” he told her.

“I wonder if it will stay that way,” she said. “Have you even considered whether Lady Annella, that china figurine of a betrothed of yours, is going to have you now?”

Jealous, Goosie?

“Won’t she? We’ll see,” he mused. “Mark my words, she’ll attend the Gressingham’s ball with me tonight. You watch and see.”

“I’ll watch you get refused before all of Society,” Lucy said back in that smug sort of way of hers.

Oh, so she thought to up the wager, did she? He changed the play a bit.

“Perhaps I have no intention of marrying her.” Was it him, or did her eyes spark at this news?

“But everyone says—”

He waved her off. “Listening to gossip, madame? I thought you above such pursuits.”

She pursed her lips together.

“I would never have married her.”

“Why not?”

“Because I doubt she would have been able to give me what I want from you.”

Then he upended her, just as he’d been taught to do.

What he didn’t expect was to find himself undone in the process.

Lucy told herself later that she’d put up one devil of a fight.

But that was dissembling at its worse.

The moment Clifton had tugged her into his grasp, his lips poised to claim hers, she’d been lost.

She would have willingly surrendered without firing a shot.

But to her chagrin, he just held her there, so close their breath mingled, so close it wasn’t hard to imagine, difficult to remember how it would feel to close that gap between them.

Her heart hammered in her chest—why wouldn’t it be, she was already furious with him—but how easily those emotions turned traitor against her.

Left her shivering with needs so long unmet. His fingers, strong and warm, curled around her chin so he looked her squarely in the eye.

Lowering his voice to a whisper, Clifton said, “Goosie, I need you.”

Lucy stilled.

“I need you.”
His statement sent a raft of desires down her spine.

And I you, Gilby
, she wanted to say and throw her arms around his neck, press her lips to his.

But there was something to his dark gaze that stayed her temptations, kept her holding herself in check, as if he was waiting for her to leap into the fire.

So she held herself still and waited. Waited for him to continue.

And he did, smiling at her, the lion of his domain, the predator assured of his supremacy. “I need you, Goosie. Not some chit who can curtsey and pour tea, but one with your, shall we say, more larcenous talents.”

He hadn’t wanted to kiss her? He wanted her to steal something?

Why, the arrogant, presumptuous—

Lucy laid both her hands on his chest—had it been her imagination or was his heart pounding as well—oh, bother his heart! She shoved as hard as she could to escape his grasp and scrambled over to the other side of the carriage.

Not that he didn’t grin at her as she’d fled.

His eyes, the ones that she’d never been able to truly read, now said something all too clearly.

Coward.

She squared her shoulders. Even if she was guilty as charged.

“If you haven’t noticed, my lord,” she said, straightening her skirt and bonnet, all of which had fallen askew, “the wars are over and my skills, such as they are, are no longer necessary or available.”

“But I need them,” he told her, leaning forward and smiling at her.

He needn’t grin so. She was quite immune to his charms. She was …

“I’m not in the business anymore … I can’t … I won’t,” she told him, unwilling to say much more for fear her desires would get the better of her.

Thankful he hadn’t kissed her, for then she would have probably agreed to anything.

“Aren’t you even curious?” he asked.

She sighed and let herself ask the question she knew she was going to regret. “What do you want, my lord?”

“I need you to find a lady for me,” he’d said.

Her pride ruffled. A lady? She sat up and stared at him. He wanted her to find him a lady? “Isn’t kidnapping me enough?” she said more diplomatically.

Aren’t I lady enough for you, my lord?
her pride clamored.

“Well, it has proved to be rather diverting,” he said.

She pretended not to hear him. But that became impossible with his next utterance.

“Actually, I need you to help me determine which Lady Standon Malcolm was having an affair with.”

This brought her gaze ripping back to his, and once again, she found herself drowning in those dark eyes of his.

He thought Lady Standon had been Malcolm’s lover? She tightened her lips together so her mouth wouldn’t fall open in shock. It wasn’t so much that he had the entire affair muddled, but that he’d gotten this far in just a day.

“An affair? With one of the marchionesses? Impossible,” Lucy scoffed as nonchalantly as she could.

Besides, for once she was telling him the truth. “Not at all. One of them was connected to Malcolm.
Intimately
.”

The word came out like a caress, and she ignored the way her senses awakened, as if beckoned by a siren.

Oh, if you only knew
, Lucy wanted to say, but again stayed her tongue and said nothing, letting him continue to reveal his hand.

Clifton leaned back in his seat. “When my father died, he left Malcolm a small fortune. Monies un-entailed to the estate, so he was free to give it as he saw fit. And as it turns out, Malcolm left it all in a trust, which is apparently under the control of Lady Standon.”

Lucy had played enough cards not to let this shocking news change the wager.

But still, a trust?! Malcolm had left a fortune to his heirs? How could this be?

“I don’t see how—” she said more to herself than to him.

“No, no, there is more,” he said, cutting her off. “The monies have never been touched. At least as far as I know.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, she raised her gaze to his to measure what exactly he was asking. What he was revealing …

How much he knew.

“What does this have to do with me?” she dared to ask.
Besides everything
.

“Well, it has everything to do with Lady Standon. At least one of them.” He paused and looked up at her. “I need to determine which Lady Standon was connected to Malcolm and how.”

Now it was Lucy’s turn to sit back, her hands clutched to the leather of the seat. “How do you know all this?” she blurted out without even thinking.

“Honestly, I shouldn’t know that much. Mr. Strout has been absolutely unwilling to discuss the matter. Wouldn’t give me the least bit of information about Malcolm’s will.” He paused. “You know how he is—your father used him, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Papa trusted him implicitly.”
And so did I until this moment.

Why, that lying, self-serving bastard. Malcolm had left a fortune to her for her use? Strout had never said a word.

“But if Strout refused to tell you—” she said, leaving her query dangling out there like a lure.

And he caught it quickly. “Oh, he refused to tell me. Claimed Malcolm’s will was explicit and would not share the contents with me. Confidentiality and all.” Then he sat back, once again the smug, self-assured man who’d stepped into her father’s house. “But his clerk was another matter.”

Lucy closed her eyes. The clerk. Of course. She’d met the man. Thin and pale, overworked and underpaid.

Just as Archie had been.

A fact that obviously hadn’t gone unnoticed by the earl. “Apparently Strout is as parsimonious with his pay as he is with his client’s secrets.” He flashed a smile at her. “All it took was a—”

“Beefsteak and a few pints of ale,” she muttered, sinking lower into her seat. “Yes, of course. You filled his belly and then muddled his good senses.”

Why wouldn’t he have? Her father had taught him that. And blast him to hell, Strout being a penny-pinch of a bastard had made the task all that much easier.

“Yes, exactly,” Clifton said. “Once that half-starved fellow was fat and happy—”

“He sung,” she provided.

“Yes, just like that little canary your sister kept.” Lucy only wished she could stuff Mr. Strout’s idiot of a clerk into a gilded cage … and withhold the bread crumbs—for he’d all but led the earl right to her. Better yet, she was of half a mind to send around for Rusty and Sammy and have them ensure that the pale little man never spilled his employer’s secrets ever again, beefsteak or no.

The only saving grace was Clifton’s obvious stuffy notions. Apparently it was too much for him to consider that she, Lucy Ellyson, might in fact be a marchioness. A lady, in title and deed.

Certainly not worthy of a second look or chance, of being his countess.

Her father’s warning from all those years ago echoed through her thoughts as if she stood in the map room in Hampstead.

“
…
I won’t bandy this about, any more than I will see your heart broken. As much as you fancy this man, he will never have you. Not in a way that is honest and noble. He cannot.”

She heaved a sigh as discreetly as she could and looked back up at Clifton. Immediately she wished she hadn’t. Did he have to be so handsome? Did the sight of him have to make her heart waver and her resolve as tipsy as she’d been last night?

Oh, not that she didn’t see the changes in him.

Where before he’d had a air of insurmountable confidence, an air that the world was his simply by the very rank of his birth, there were cracks in his stony façade.