How I Met My Countess (22 page)

“So he took the seat.” Lucy’s voice grew wistful, and she gazed up at him. “It could have been you that night.”

“You don’t know how many times I wished it had been.”

“It wasn’t your turn,” she said. “And think of the lives, of the work you had left to do, the work you’ve done tonight.”

He ignored the truth of what she said. “I failed and Malcolm died because I was desperate, willing to go to any lengths to get to you.”

“Yes, and if it had been you on that beach, would Strout’s deception have ever been discovered? Or what of Marseilles? Don’t think I don’t know how you aided Larken there. Or any of the other matters you’ve handled over the years.”

“There would have been someone else. Some other fool.”

She shook her head vehemently. “No, those deeds were yours and yours alone to do,” she paused. “Just as last night was ours to discover.
Ours
, not anyone else’s.”

“You sound like your father,” Clifton told her. “Is that more of his advice?”

She set her jaw, then reached up and cradled his face in her hands. Given that it was Lucy, she didn’t hold him with a gentle, caring caress—her hands were strong and firm. “Demmit, Gilby, you will see the truth of this. My father always maintained that the work he’d done on the Continent, all those years in the field working for the Duke of Parkerton weren’t meant for the honors and the rewards—they were only important in the sense of what they prepared him to do—his real work, if you will.”

Her words finally struck a light in the darkness inside him. Like a lone flicker of reason.

“Preparing agents,” Clifton said, feeling a light begin to brighten.

“Yes, exactly. Think of all the men he trained— Templeton, Jack, you, Malcolm, Darby. His earlier heroics were just lessons for him to impart when the struggle was far more desperate, far more important.”

“But Goosie, I am only one man. What does all that have to do with me?”

She huffed a loud sigh and threw up her hands. “Everything, you great fool. If naught for all your training, the lessons and experiences you gained, do you think Strout’s thievery would have been discovered?” Her green eyes burned with determination.

And something else. Pride.

“Perhaps not,” he conceded.

“Gilby, the events of our lives are set in motion by a hand greater than ours—and we are never given a task that we cannot, do not, have the powers to conquer.”

“But I couldn’t have done it without you,” he whispered, leaning over and kissing her brow before he continued dressing. She followed suit, catching up her wrapper.

As he bent to pick up his shirt, his back to her, a rolled-up packet of papers fell out.

“What the devil?” he muttered as he leaned over to pick them up.

For it was a will. One of the wills from Strout’s office, to be exact. And then he looked again at the shirt in his hands and realized it was the one she’d been wearing the night before.

And he would have wagered his last grout that this was Malcolm’s will.

She’d smuggled it out of Strout’s office last night and had meant to keep it from him.

Clifton closed his eyes, the fire of her deceit burning away the love he’d confessed to her this night. It burned and raged out of control, leaving him shaking with fury.

Then he paused, tucking the will in his coat pocket and turning around to face her. “There is only one thing left undone, Lucy.”

“Yes, Gilby?” she said in a cozy, well-sated little voice.

“I still don’t understand why Malcolm gave you guardianship over his estate.”

Before his eyes, he watched her still.

But he needn’t have asked her, for the answer to his question, the very reason for Malcolm’s secret, came bounding into her room.

The door plowed open and into the room barreled a young boy.

The little monkey
, Clifton guessed.

“Lucy, Lucy, I thought I heard voices—” the child said before he stopped and cast a wary gaze at Clifton.

The earl studied him as well. And there, staring up at him, was a pair of dark eyes so like his own, a face he had both never seen and hadn’t seen in years.

He turned to Lucy, and even in the dim light, he could see she’d gone as white as a sheet.

But he didn’t think for one second he would get the truth from her, so he turned back to the boy. “Who was your father, lad? Who was he?”

Lucy’s horror had left her speechless. She’d never meant for him to find out.

At least not like this.

“Who was your father, boy? Tell me?” Clifton thundered.

She’d forbidden Mickey to ever speak of the matter. To never reveal the truth. For she’d reasoned, and rightly so, that if the truth of his parentage was discovered, the Sterlings would have sent him off packing to the Grey estate.

Mickey stared up at the face so like his own, and his gaze narrowed, as if he had guessed the truth as well.

“Malcolm Grey, sir,” the boy answered. “Did you know him?”

Clifton staggered back, not even looking at her, his gaze still fixed on Mickey.

“You’re Malcolm’s son?”

“Aye, my lord,” he said.

Clifton shook his head, then turned and marched out of the room.

Oh, good gracious heavens! He thought she’d had an affair with Malcolm.

Lucy dashed after him. “Clifton, you must hear me out. You must listen to me—”

He paused on the stairs and shook a finger at her. “I will hear no more of your lies. Your deceit, madame! You are no better than Strout or that shiftless, spineless man you married.”

All through the house, Lucy could hear the creak of beds and the squeak of hinges as the doors adjacent to the stairwell opened. Oh, how perfect. Now the entire household had ringside seats from which to witness this scandalous row.

“Would you cease your bellowing and listen to reason!” she shouted back at him.

“From you? I doubt you know what reason is. Or have you managed to steal it from someone who actually possessed it?” he fired back.

Lucy sucked in a deep breath and tried to frame a retort, but it was too late; he’d turned and was going down the stairs two at a time.

“That boy is my nephew, and I won’t have him raised by the likes of you!” he declared from the foyer. “I’ll be back with my solicitor. Have his things packed and ready.” Then the front door slammed shut, rattling on its hinges.

“His name is Michael!” she said after him, slumping down on the stairwell, her legs giving way beneath her.

In a moment, Elinor and Minerva were on either side of her.

“He means to take Mickey from me!” she cried, sobbing into Elinor’s shoulder.

“We won’t let him,” Minerva told her, glancing over Lucy’s shaking shoulders to look Elinor directly in the eye. “We will not let him.”

Elinor nodded in agreement.

“I fear he is past listening to reason,” Lucy continued. “I’ve made a dreadful muddle of this.”

“Never fear, Lucy, he’ll listen to reason,” Minerva told her, patting her on the shoulder. “He’ll listen. We’ll see to that.”

Some hours later, Minerva and Elinor sat in the darkened confines of the duke’s carriage outside the doors of White’s.

“Minerva, if we are seen here, lurking about on St. James Street, we’ll be the scandal of the Season.” Elinor slumped lower in her seat.

“I tell you, he’ll be here soon enough, and then we can be gone,” Minerva assured her. “Lucy would do the same for us.”

This notion brightened Elinor’s resolve. “I suppose she would. Who would have thought she could be such a dear?”

“No, who would have thought it,” Minerva agreed. For indeed, if anyone had suggested that she would go to these lengths, putting her reputation on the line for the likes of Lucy Ellyson Sterling, she would have sent the fool packing.

For that was exactly what they were doing—perilously close to ruining their reputations, for no woman of a good name dared set foot on St. James Street, the storied home to most of the most refined and exclusive men’s clubs in London.

But this was where Clifton’s butler had told them his master was going—“to his club”—before the proper fellow had closed the door in their faces.

And so to the club Minerva and Elinor had raced. And now they waited.

They had snuck away as Lucy had sat waiting for the solicitor the duke had promised to send over to aid her. For if they’d revealed the true nature of their plot, she would have stopped them.

“Do you think he will listen to us?” Elinor mused.

“He will,” Minerva said, pulling a pistol out of her reticule.

“Dear heavens, Minerva! Where did you get that?”

She held the piece gingerly, then glanced over at Elinor. “I stole it from Thomas-William’s room.”

Elinor glanced at the gun and then up at Minerva. “Bravo!” Then she glanced out the crack in the curtains. “There he is! At least I think it is him. He has a shirt on now.”

“Scandalous man,” Minerva muttered, her hand on the latch, for there indeed was Clifton coming down the block. “Though I imagine he suits Lucy to a tee.”

They both held their breath as he drew near, and when he was right alongside the carriage, Minerva swung out and shoved the pistol into the earl’s back.

“Get in the carriage, my lord, and I promise not to shoot,” she told him.

“Lady Standon?” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her. “Do you even know how to fire that thing?”

“My lord, I haven’t the least idea if it’s loaded, but are you willing to find out?”

An hour later, a shaken, but intact, Clifton emerged from the Hollindrake carriage. He made his way into White’s, where he was met by the solicitor he’d summoned to meet him there.

It had been a full morning, what with helping Pymm arrest Strout, sending around for the solicitor so he could gain custody of the boy, and finally, being kidnapped by not one of the Lady Standons but two of them.

Good God! If it got out in the Foreign Office circles that he’d been nabbed by a pair of dowagers in front of White’s, he’d never hear the end of it.

Not that he thought Minerva or Elinor were about to natter on at their afternoon calls as to how they had spent the earlier part of their day.

As it was, he’d sent the solicitor packing, for he’d had quite enough of wrangling and legal matters for one day. Why, he was just thankful the profession was barred from admitting ladies, for he rued the day the likes of Minerva Sterling would ever be given a chance to argue a case. Her words still rang in his ears.

“You arrogant fool! You never gave her a chance! When was she supposed to tell you about your brother’s child? When, sir?”

Before he’d had a chance to make an answer, any answer, Elinor Sterling had been right there.

“Malcolm loved Lucy’s sister, Mariana. Left her with child. And Lucy has guarded the lad since the day he was born. And now you dare to impugn her, when she has cared for him, kept him—”

“—much to the consternation of the Sterlings,”
Minerva pointed out.

“And at risk to her own reputation, mind you, because just like you, most of us assumed he was hers. Why, she’s put her own happiness behind the welfare of that child over and over just to ensure that he stays with her.”

Minerva wasn’t finished either.
“And why would she have told you? By any accounts, in her eyes you had disavowed her love, never come back and were all but engaged to another! What else was she to think?!”

Clifton shook his head, sifting through everything he’d learned. She’d guarded Malcolm’s child. Raised him as her own, and buffeted all of Society’s rules and sneers to keep him with her— because he was all she had left of the life she’d loved.

In Hampstead, in the country.

Now it was his turn to lament.
Malcolm, if only you’d told me about Mariana. About the child. I would have done all I could for them.

Why his brother hadn’t told him, he knew not, and now he would never know.

“Clifton!” came an affable greeting.

The earl looked up to find Jack coming down the stairs.

“How goes our little business?” Jack winked and gave him a nudge.

It was then that Clifton noticed the man at Jack’s side. It was easy to tell they were brothers, for the man was of Jack’s height and build, but the resemblance stopped there; Jack’s companion was dressed to the nines, in a resplendent jacket of the latest fashion, boots polished to a gleam, his hair cut precisely, as if it were trimmed each morning.

And capping it all off was a glorious cravat, tied in one of those most envied arrangements and embellished with a diamond stickpin.

The fellow gazed over at Clifton through a lorgnette, and his brow raised at the crumpled state of the earl’s jacket and what was probably the shadow of a beard.

“Oh, there, where are my manners,” Jack was saying. “I don’t know if you’ve met my brother, His Grace, the Duke of Parkerton.”

“This doesn’t appear to be the best time for introductions, Jack,” the duke intoned. “Your friend looks in need of some attention.” The duke shook his head in dismay, then waved his hand for Clifton to move out of his way.

Clifton raised his gaze and looked at the duke. Stared at the man who’d had a hand in all this mess. “You owe a lady an apology.”

“I owe no ladies any such thing—and if I do owe some unfortunate creature of
your
acquaintance a few words, I doubt she is a lady. Now out of my way, sir,” the duke repeated, drawing himself up to his most imperious stance.

“Oh, good God,” Jack muttered, stepping back, shaking his head. “This isn’t going to end well.”

Clifton’s eyes saw not the duke but Lucy being forced out of her home. Lucy having to marry Archie Sterling to keep herself and Mickey safe. Lucy thinking him lost to her—worse, that he’d never cared for her.

In much the same fashion in which Parkerton would regard anyone not of his lofty realm. Beyond his consequence.

So Clifton gave the duke a lesson in common eloquence.

He leveled a doubler into the duke’s side. The air left the man in a loud
whoosh,
and Clifton finished him with a right solid facer, the Duke of Parkerton landing in a very inelegant sprawl on the very fine and elegant marble floor of White’s.

Jack took a few, slow tentative steps over and glanced down at the unconscious figure of his brother. “Oh, that was a truly fine muffler, Clifton. Excellent hits. You don’t know how many times I’ve longed to do that.” He glanced up at Clifton as he added, “But you do realize, he’ll insist on having your membership revoked.”

Summoning a few of the servants to help, they managed to carry Parkerton off to a quiet room. With a bottle of White’s best brandy and a beefsteak at the ready, Jack revived his brother.

“What the devil!” Parkerton sputtered as he came to. “What happened?”

“Clifton floored you,” Jack told him, pressing a beefsteak to his swelling eye. He glanced over his shoulder to where Clifton stood in the shadows. “Shuttered you good, I fear.”

“I have a black eye?” Parkerton said, his fingers brushing aside the steak to test the spot. He winced and took the cut of beef from Jack, settling it on his injury himself. “I’ve never had one.”

“Oh, go on with you,” Jack said. “Of course you have. Every lad gets a black eye once.”

Parkerton glanced up at him. “No, Jack. I was never allowed the freedoms you had.” He blinked his one good eye and glanced around the room. “And who exactly are you?”

“Clifton,” Jack reminded him. “He’s a friend of mine.”

“Which one of your friends?” Parkerton asked, one brow arched. “One of your old friends”— referring to Jack’s more nefarious past—“or one of your more recent acquaintances?”

Clifton straightened. “He knows?”

This question was directed to Jack, who nodded. The duke straightened up and shook his head a bit, as if sweeping out the last vestiges of Clifton’s facer. “So I take that to mean you are one of the gentlemen from the Foreign Office who from time to time
visited
Jack.”

As in used the secret caverns and smuggler’s passageways at Thistleton Park to slip in and out of England on their way to the Continent.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Clifton said, bowing slightly.

“Good God, no wonder they sent you,” the duke said. “You’ve got a bruising punch.”

Clifton bowed again.

“I believe you mentioned something about a lady,” the duke said.

“Yes, Lucy Ellyson.”

“Ellyson? That name is familiar.” He tapped his chin. “How do I know that name?”

Jack’s eyes widened, and he shook his head at Clifton.
Nay! Don’t tell him.

“Wasn’t that some fellow our father raised up?” he said.

There was a slight groan from Jack, and he just shrugged in reply.

“And this Lucy creature?” the duke asked.

“His daughter,” Clifton said.

“Jack, will you quit looking like you are about to be ill,” Parkerton ordered. “You look paler than the time you had to inform me Great-Aunt Josephine wasn’t dead.”

“It’s similar, I fear,” Jack admitted.

The duke stared at him. “What are you saying, or rather, not saying?”

Jack shuffled a bit. “Our father used to recruit thieves and nobles alike for the Foreign Office. He would send them to school, train them himself, and then take them with him when he would go on tour on the Continent to help him spy for England.”

Clifton thought it might have been kinder to just land another doubler into the duke’s middle, for now the lofty duke turned quite pale.

“Our father was a spy?”

“An excellent one,” Clifton added, much to the dismay of the duke, who waved him off.

“Yes,” Jack told him. “Ask Aunt Josephine if you don’t believe me.”

“Oh, I’ll save myself the pain of that interview and take your word,” the duke said wearily. “This news only confirms my long-held suspicion that I am the only member of the Tremonts not inflicted with madness.”

Jack grinned.

“And this Ellyson fellow? Was he one of our father’s noble gentlemen?”

Clifton and Jack shared a glance.

“From that look and your silence, I garner the answer is no,” the duke said.

“Yes and no. Ellyson was a thief who picked your father’s pocket and your father had him sent to school and then—”

“Used him in the King’s ser vice,” the duke finished, putting a much more palatable gloss on the subject. “But there is more to this?”

The earl nodded. “Your father gave Ellyson the use, during his lifetime, of a house in Hampstead, where he continued to … continued to …”

“… serve the King,” Jack said. “Training others. Myself included.”

“He lived there with his daughters and performed a noble ser vice, despite his less-than-honest origins. Yet when he died, Your Grace ordered—”

The duke waved him off. “I have to imagine my steward ordered the daughters evicted and—” He pointed to his swollen eye.

Clifton nodded. “My apologies, Your Grace. I fear my temper—”

“No apologies. This Miss Ellyson must be quite a lady.”

“She is,” he and Jack said in unison. Then Clifton added, “She is Lady Standon now.”

That regal brow rose again. “One of those dowagers that is the talk of Society, I gather?”

Jack nodded.

“If you would but consider giving her back the use of the house,” Clifton suggested, “I would be most grateful—it would free her from the confines of Society and give her a chance to make a life of her own choosing.”

“And I suppose you are of a hope that she will choose you in this new life?”

“Yes, though I doubt it. I’ve rather made a mess of things,” Clifton admitted.

“Your temper, I gather?” the duke said wryly. He struggled up to his feet. “I will call on Lady Standon immediately and make my amends.”

Clifton and Jack shot each other wry looks.

“What? Can I not call on the lady?”

Jack shook his head. “Not looking like that!”

The duke looked down at his rumpled cravat and creased coat. “I suppose not. A new suit is in order.”

“No!” Clifton said, shaking his head.

“Definitely not,” Jack said, starting to pull off his own coat. “Take mine.”

Parkerton regarded his brother’s offering with disdain. “Wear that? I’ll look like my steward!”

“Exactly,” Jack said.

“Excellent notion,” Clifton said. “Um, Lady Standon isn’t much for Society and has even less regard for Your Grace.”

“Why ever not?” Parkerton asked as he found himself being divested of his coat and having Jack’s more ser viceable one pulled on.

Jack paused for a moment, a calculated light in his eyes. “Do you want it bantered about town that you were seen calling on the Standon dowagers? Every matron within a hundred miles of London would take it as a sign you are looking for a new wife.”

Parkerton shuddered at the notion.

“More to the point, Lucy Ellyson isn’t one with a regard for titles and rank. And you did have her evicted,” Clifton told him. “And I learned that right hook from the lady herself. I’d hate for you to have a matching set—” He tapped his own black eye to make his point.

“Ah!” Parkerton said, raising a hand to his own swollen eye. “Good advice.”

So it was, an hour later, that Lucy found herself in the receiving room seated before a man who claimed to be the Duke of Parkerton.