If Wishes Were Earls (18 page)

“Out?”

“Yes, decidedly. Out.”

The two Marshoms, so very much alike, stood toe to toe.

“You may have command of Foxgrove, the Cottage and the house on Hill Street, but not here. This is my abode, and is not yours to command. My father granted me residence here and here I stay.”

While she was correct in that regard, it was his money that supported the house and her living, but this seemed hardly the time to point that out.

“But dearest Auntie E, you have plenty of room—”

She was completely unmoved by his charm. “
Harrumph!
Not for a proper distance between the boudoirs. I will not have any suggestion of impropriety under my roof.”

There was a slight cough from Thortle, probably sensing that his days were numbered and discretion was no longer needed.

But luckily for him, most everyone ignored his implied contradiction.

Roxley wondered if that included whoever Lady Eleanor had meant the butler to open the door for, notably her “dearest darling.”

“I will meet this Miss Hathaway of yours—” Aunt Eleanor continued.

“Miss Murray—” he corrected with an apologetic glance at the heiress, who now wore a murderous expression.

Roxley could almost see the seething letter that would be sent back to London demanding her father cast Roxley and his relations into the deepest, darkest pit that debtor’s prison might afford.

“Yes, yes, Miss Murray,” his aunt huffed. “But you and your Mr. Hotchkin can take rooms at the King’s Cross.” When Roxley looked ready to protest, she leveled her best threat. “Press me on this, Tiberius, and I will move out. Leave Bath. Make Lord Tarvis’s great-grandson delirious with joy to have the use of his house back. Then where will I go? With you on Hill Street? I’ve always fancied one last Season in London before I die.”

Given the lady’s obvious good health and luster, Roxley knew that it would probably be a good twenty Seasons before Aunt Eleanor stuck her fork in the wall.

“Then so be it,” Roxley acquiesced. “Mingo, take my bags and Mr. Hotchkin’s back to the carriage. We are taking rooms down the hill.”

“Of course we are,” muttered the ever-aggrieved Mingo.

Still, Roxley deplored letting any of his aunts bully him. “This isn’t the end of the matter, Aunt Eleanor. Once I am settled, I will return.”

“We won’t be here,” the lady told him most tartly.

But this time Roxley had her. “Ah, yes, the theater. I nearly forgot. I saw Lady Bindon as we were riding into Bath. She mentioned her, rather
your
plans, and was only too generous to include all of us in her and Lord Bindon’s box tonight.
All of us
.”

Lady Eleanor looked anything but pleased. But then her gaze flitted over toward Mr. Hotchkin.

“Not him,” Roxley told her firmly.

“You said ‘all of us.’ ”

“Hotchkin has business to attend to,” Roxley told her. “Shall I call before seven?”

“No,” she told him, pushing him out the door. “We will meet you at the theater.”

And this time, Thortle managed to get the door shut.

L
ady Eleanor turned and took only a scant measure of Miss Murray before she turned her discerning gaze on Harriet. “A mustering. Of all the ill-timed ventures.” Then she started for the stairs, but whirled around as if in an afterthought. “Whatever do you have there, Miss Hathaway?”

Harriet glanced down and realized she was still holding the hatbox from Lady Essex. “Your sister, ma’am, Lady Essex sent it with her regards.”

Slowly, Lady Eleanor came down the steps and took the box from Harriet. She tugged the string around it loose and then, with a hand that slightly trembled, she tipped the lip so she could look inside, and just as quickly closed it. “Whyever did she send this with you?” Her words sounded a bit strangled.

“I don’t know, my lady,” Harriet replied. “But she said for me to tell you, ‘It is your turn to decide.’ ”

“Inconvenient mess, that is what this is,” she muttered before she rang for the housekeeper, the box cradled to her breast.

A
fter seeing to Miss Murray and helping her decide what would be the best dress for the evening—a trial that took nearly an hour—Harriet wished, and not for the first time, she’d listened to Daphne more often when her friend was on one of her tirades about “good fashion” and “the right touches.”

Notions that utterly baffled poor Harriet.

Luckily for her, the job of a companion was not so much to decide whether pearls or a cameo were the better choice, but merely to nod and say in a convincing voice that everything was “perfectly enchanting.”

Even when one didn’t mean it.

But still, she would have liked to have had Daphne at hand, for when Harriet was free to complete her own toilet, she stood before the array of gowns that her friends had packed up for her and was at a loss as to what to do.

As luck would have it, the housekeeper, Mrs. Nevitt, and one of the maids arrived to see if there was anything else that was needed.

“Is it true the young lord is here?” the maid asked from behind Mrs. Nevitt.

Harriet could tell her impertinent question annoyed the older woman, but even so they were both keen to hear the answer.

“Yes, Roxley’s here,” she told them. “That’s why we are all here . . . for . . . for a mustering.” She couldn’t keep the wistful note out of her voice and to her dismay, the sharp-eyed housekeeper didn’t miss it. She paused and gave Harriet an assessing glance.

Not unlike the one the mistress of the house had shot at her earlier.

Rather than explain herself, Harriet hurried over to her bed and held up one of Daphne’s remade gowns. As Daphne had said, since none of her new gowns would fit her in the coming months, it only made sense that someone should be wearing them.

“Lor! That is something,” the maid exclaimed, which earned her a dark glance from the housekeeper.

“Is that what Miss Murray will be wearing tonight?” Mrs. Nevitt asked, as she came up to look at the beautiful green silk.

Harriet shook her head. “Oh, no, this is mine.”

“Yours, miss?” the maid exclaimed with a hint of envy.

The housekeeper blinked, taking in both the dress and the “hired” companion before her, and given her expression, Harriet rushed to explain. “I’m not usually a hired companion. The lady who accompanies Miss Murray fell last week in London and twisted both ankles. When it appeared Miss Murray would not be able to travel, I volunteered to come along.” When the maid and the housekeeper continued to look at her with expressions of doubt and curiosity, she added, “Lady Essex was in agreement that my coming along was the perfect solution.”

Mrs. Nevitt’s gaze moved from Harriet to the silk and back to Harriet. “And Lady Essex thought that you might help the young lord?”

Help Roxley?
Certainly, that was one way of putting it.

Harriet bit her lip. “Lady Essex thought I could lend some sensibility to the situation.” That was about as diplomatic as she could put it.

“
Hmm
,” Mrs. Nevitt mused. “Well, I never! And at a time like this.” The woman huffed a sigh and turned back to the gown lying on the bed. “No wonder herself is in such a state.”

“Is something wrong?” Harriet asked. “Perhaps I can help.” When the older woman appeared doubtful, she added, “Lady Essex is a dear friend of mine and I know she would want me to be of assistance to her sister in any way possible.”

The woman gave Harriet another measuring glance. “Oh, I’m certain Lady Essex would have a thing or two to say to her sister. Starting with the company she keeps. Making a fool of herself. Ruinous it is. Ruinous.”

“She’s in trouble?” Harriet asked.

“We all are, miss,” the maid said with a solemn shake of her head.

Chapter 8

A muster is also a flock of peacocks, which at this moment explains much.

Lady Overton to Miss Darby as they watched Colonel Darby

assemble his regiment on the parade grounds

from Miss Darby’s Perilous Journey

C
oming out of his hotel sometime later, Roxley stood on the sidewalk and considered the quickest route to the theater. He was already late, which would have his aunt in a fine fettle. Hence, it might be best if he waited a few moments so there was no doubt the lights would be dimming as he arrived.

Less time for the old girl to get a regular scold in.

And knowing Aunt Eleanor, by intermission she would have forgotten his transgression entirely.

“My lord?”

Roxley glanced over his shoulder and found Mr. Hotchkin standing patiently at his elbow.

How long the man had been waiting there, the earl didn’t know, but he always had the suspicion that Mr. Hotchkin’s true strength was in his ability to observe and catalogue.

And to arrive when one least expected him.

“Good God, Hotchkin! Where did you come from?”

The serious fellow blinked. “Why from inside the hotel, my lord.” As if such an answer should be obvious to anyone.

“Yes, yes, I know that,” Roxley said, wondering how it was that Chaunce Hathaway hadn’t drowned his young, overly serious assistant long before this. “But I thought you had tasks to see to.” There had been a large packet of dispatches waiting for Mr. Hotchkin at the hotel when they’d arrived.

Obviously the man had made short work of the stack, for he lowered his voice and said in all earnestness, “My lord, I’ve some news.”

Hopefully something good
.

“Grave news,” Hotchkin continued, dashing Roxley’s fleeting bit of optimism.

Yes, so much for that throw of the dice.

“Miss Murray is not whom we thought,” the man told him.

Roxley heard the words, but they hardly made sense. “What? She’s not an heiress?” He laughed a bit. “Would demmed well seem my fate of late. Find a rich bride only to have her father lose her dowry on the ’Change.”

“It isn’t that, my lord,” Hotchkin was saying, looking up and down the block, and when there was a break in the hustle of people hurrying past, he added, “She never had a fortune.”

“Never had a fortune? How can that be?” Roxley shook his head. He’d had Mingo nose into Mr. Murray’s dealings and had been assured the man was what he appeared to be: a reputable businessman.

However, he soon discovered there was one very important thing that had been overlooked that the tenacious Mr. Hotchkin had discovered.

“It isn’t a matter of the money, sir, rather that there is no Miss Murray.”

“No Miss Murray? Whatever are you going on about? I’m about to meet the chit at the theater.” He tipped his chin in that direction.

Mr. Hotchkin shook his head. “You might be meeting a lady at the theater, but she is not Miss Murray. For we missed something very important.”

Roxley was at the point where he was starting to wonder if the River Avon was deep enough to give Mr. Hotchkin a good soaking. “Out with it, Mr. Hotchkin. What have you learned?”

“Miss Murray is not who we think she is. For you see, I have it on the most excellent authority that Mr. Murray has no daughter. Never has.”

Roxley took a step back. Not Murray’s daughter? “Then who the devil is that woman?”

Hotchkin shrugged. “That’s what we must find out.”

Find out?
Oh, Mr. Hotchkin. Always so spot on.
Find out?
He’d do more than that.

For months he’d felt as if he were caught in a web of deceit.

Only to discover the spider had crawled into his grasp.

H
arriet had thought it wisest to wear her full-length pelisse so as not to call attention to her new gown.

As Miss Murray’s hired companion, she didn’t want to cause a stir—at least not until it was too late and she had Roxley’s entire attention.

If she felt a frisson of guilt over this business, she had only to recall what Tabitha had said in passing, quoting the most authoritative source on the subject they knew,
Miss Darby and the Counterfeit Bride
.

A man should marry the woman he loves, or else he is twice cursed.

Wise words from Prince Sanjit, indeed. And as Tabitha had pressed further, “Would you wish such a marriage for Roxley?”

Not that Harriet thought Miss Murray was a counterfeit bride, but there was certainly something not quite right about the heiress—starting with why Miss Murray had a pistol hidden in her trunk.

Not that it would do the girl much good now, since Harriet had taken the firing pins and tucked them safely away in her own small jewelry case.

Still, why did a Bath-educated miss carry about a concealed pistol? A question she would ask Roxley the moment she could gain his attention.

She had high hopes that her gown might manage to catch his eye and give her just such an opportunity.

That is, if Lady Eleanor didn’t send her packing back to the house on Brock Street.

Tentatively, Harriet slipped off her pelisse, and to her relief, no one paid her much heed.

Lady Bindon was still marveling at the news that Roxley had brought a young lady for mustering—not even blinking an eye at this odd Marshom custom—and going on and on how “wasn’t it just yesterday that dearest and beloved Tristan had come to Bath with Lady Davinia for his mustering?” referring to Roxley’s ill-fated parents.

“Oh, weren’t they a scandalous pair,” Lady Eleanor was saying with some pride. “I was so pleased that Tristan had found such a clever girl—”

“Clever?” Lady Bindon shook her head. “Pretty, you mean. Prettiest gel out that year. That’s why he found her.”

“I remember the gown she wore,” Lord Bindon said with a laugh. “As immodest as Roxley’s bit there.” He nodded at Harriet.

Lady Eleanor and Lady Bindon both shot him scandalized glances.

“Bindon!” his wife complained. “Whatever are you going on about? Miss Murray’s gown is the height of good sense and fashion.” She pointed at the pale silk Miss Murray had chosen.

Lord Bindon glanced at the heiress and shook his head. “Not that one. The pretty chit Roxley means to have. The one in green.”

All three ladies turned around and one by one their mouths opened in shock.

“Yes, that
one
,” Lord Bindon chuckled.

Harriet shifted. Daphne had warned her that the emerald silk might be a bit daring for Bath. And so it seemed her friend had been right. Even Harriet had known it was scandalous at best—hardly the gown of a hired companion. Or even the daughter of a knight.

Lady Eleanor’s maid, having fallen into a fit of envy over the gown, had outdone herself with the rest of Harriet’s toilet—having piled her dark hair up into a long column of curls that fell down in an ebony cascade, only emphasizing Harriet’s height. The girl had even begged a rope of pearls from Lady Eleanor’s maid, which glowed with a regal luster against the dark background of Harriet’s ebony tresses.

The rich, deep emerald silk made Harriet’s green eyes stand out all that much more—like the lustrous pearls winking in her dark hair.

Lord Bindon chuckled. “Oh, that young devil! He has his father’s eye for daring young ladies.” He winked at Harriet and chuckled again.

He was rewarded with a swat from his wife’s fan.
Thwack
.

“You old fool! That’s Miss Hathaway. The hired companion.” Then she pointed at Miss Murray, “Here is Miss Murray, the perfectly suited young lady Roxley has brought to be presented to his aunt.”

He looked from Miss Murray then back at Harriet and snorted. “Find out where the gel hired that one”—he pointed at Harriet—“and next time you need some chit to traipse after you, use the same agency. This one’s a far sight better than the sloe-eyed drabs you usually engage.” He grinned at Harriet. “What did you say your name was, gel?”

“Miss Hathaway, my lord.”

“Knew a Sir George Hathaway in my day.”

Harriet brightened. “My father, my lord.”

“You don’t say! Well, now that you do, I see quite clearly that you have the look of a Hathaway about you.”

Harriet touched her hair without thinking.

“Yes, by golly, that’s it.” Lord Bindon winked again. “And you have his air of mischief about you, I daresay.”

“Oh, no,” Harriet rushed to protest.

“Your father is a gentleman?” Lady Bindon asked, taking a closer look at Harriet.

“A gentleman? Sir George? Now there’s a lark,” Lord Bindon repeated with a bark of a laugh. “The best demmed fellow at finding the most willing bits of—”

“Bindon!” his wife exclaimed.
Thwack.
“Remember yourself.”

“Oh, yes, quite right. Fine fellow, your father, Miss Hathaway. Decent chap. Bit wild in his salad days. Well before he met your mother. But weren’t we all?”

“Yes, so you were,” his wife said before returning to the subject that interested her. “However is it you ended up being in service, Miss Hathaway?” Lady Bindon asked, again glancing at the gown with an expression that said hired companion or not, gentleman’s daughter or not, the emerald silk Harriet wore told a story that must include a disgraceful past.

But to Harriet’s amazement it was Miss Murray who came to her rescue.

“Lady Bindon, Harriet is the dearest soul. When my own Miss Watson was injured, Miss Hathaway volunteered to accompany me so that there would be no delay in my . . . my . . . future happiness,” she said ever so diplomatically. “Giving up her Season to help me, a near perfect stranger.” Miss Murray smiled her approval for one and all. “As for her dress—why, it was a gift from her friends, the Duchess of Preston and Lady Henry Seldon. How could she not wear such a rich and beautiful gown?”

“Why not, indeed!” Lord Bindon enthused.

Thwack!

“Miss Murray, you are as kind and thoughtful of others as you are mannerly,” Lady Bindon said, tossing an approving glance over at Lady Eleanor. She made no further comment on Harriet’s choice of gown.

But then again, her dour glance said it all.

“Well, Miss Hathaway, it seems you have more than one admirer.” Lord Bindon nodded across the theater, where in the box directly across from theirs, a man stood waving his arms, and having caught Harriet’s attention, grinned and bowed.

“What the devil?” Harriet said without thinking, earning herself more speculative glances from Lady Eleanor and Lady Bindon. “I meant to say, ‘Oh, my.’ ”

That was the problem with having five brothers, one picked up the worst turn of phrases and in times like these, Harriet forgot herself. Now she wished she could forget who was standing across the theater making a spectacle of himself and in turn, her.

“Who is that roguish fellow?” Lady Eleanor asked. But her voice was hardly filled with censure this time.

If Harriet didn’t know better . . .

Then she remembered what the housekeeper had confided about Lady Eleanor’s latest scandal.

“He’s not like her regular cicisbeos,” the housekeeper had complained. “Caught him snooping in the drawers in the library I did. Looking at the undersides of the statues like he was appraising them.” The housekeeper had shaken her head. “And what does my lady say? ‘Let him look in my drawers,’ she says. Look in her drawers, indeed! Have you ever?”

With that confidence in hand, Harriet had promised to share the housekeeper’s concerns about this Lord Galton, this snooping beau, with Roxley, knowing full well he would find it of interest, since she now knew—well, at the very least suspected—this entire trip, this mustering, might be nothing more than a smokescreen to recover the diamonds from the Queen’s Necklace.

Meanwhile, Lady Eleanor’s affection for her most recent beau seemed to have been diverted. “Such a well-turned-out gentleman.” She glanced back at Harriet. “Do you truly know this man?”

“Yes, my lady,” Harriet said, pursing her lips together, rather unhappy to have to admit it.

This pleased Roxley’s aunt to no end. “Then you must introduce me!”

“Lady E!” Lady Bindon scolded, though with a smile on her lips. “He’s too young for you. Leave that one be. He’ll give Galton apoplexy and have the baron calling that pup out.” She shook her head and then turned to Harriet as well. “But you must tell us who that is.”

“Viscount Fieldgate,” she replied.

“I didn’t know he was coming to Bath.” Miss Murray’s brow furrowed as if this unexpected event was not to her liking. Definitely not. “Whyever would he follow us?”

“I can guess,” Lord Bindon supplied.

Thwack.

Harriet couldn’t offer an answer.

Wasn’t there an heiress or some other lady about London with good connections and a decent purse to catch his eye? Everyone in Town said he was quite rolled up, so for the life of Harriet, she couldn’t imagine why he was so set on courting
her
.

Even now, the handsome viscount was giving her that smoldering glance that had left more than one lady in ruined straits—or so the gossips avowed—but it only left Harriet with the urge to yawn.