Laura Matthews (2 page)

From his former visits, Alvescot knew exactly how to enter the house without going through the main door, and he proceeded to do so, finding to his surprise that the east door was opened even before he reached it. A footman greeted him deferentially and offered to show Lord Alvescot to his room, which turned out to be one of the lesser rooms, of no architectural merit whatsoever. The woodwork was fine enough, the doors, doorframes, skirting, dado rails, window architraves, shutters, and chimneypiece all splendidly carved, but there was little else to commend the room. It was not at all what Lord Alvescot was used to. The mahogany four-poster and the serpentine-fronted mahogany chest and bedside commode-table were undoubtedly from Chippendale’s workshop, but lacked the setting into which they should have been placed. In short, the room was hopelessly small.

As a boy, of course, Alvescot had had such a room when he visited, might in fact have stayed in this very one, or one similar to it. But he had not, since reaching his majority, been offered an apartment so small, so cramped, so thoroughly undesirable. When he inquired, he found that there was a water closet at the end of the corridor! The footman apparently did not regard his blink of disbelief, but proceeded to hold up a pair of breeches which had been found in storage. A stale odor clung to them, but it occurred to Alvescot that they were probably Frederick’s and he silently accepted them.

“If I could be of assistance until your valet arrives,” suggested the footman.

“Thank you, no. I can manage for myself.”

“There is generally a cold collation in the dining room at one, milord.”

Alvescot drew a timepiece from his pocket and noted he had only fifteen minutes to present himself. “I would prefer a tray in my room if you would see to it,” he said.

“Certainly, milord.”

Dismissing the footman, Alvescot walked to the window and gazed out over the garden and park. In the distance he could see an octagonal garden house from which a long walk bordered by a stone wall led to a ha-ha, which prevented the cattle from drawing too close to the house. From his vantage point it looked like a sizable herd, but he wasn’t close enough to really judge their condition, he reminded himself. As a boy he had admired the garden house with its Adam fireplace and ogival windows, but he turned now to his tiny room with a frown of displeasure.

It had occurred to him that his aunt, who must have been one of the party at the entry porch, had not even bothered to step forward and inquire after his well-being. Not that this seemed out of character. He had never liked his Aunt Damery, whose cold eyes and disinterest in her sole child Frederick had puzzled him from the first time he’d met her. Frederick had never complained of her detachment, but his affection had been given to his nanny, and his father.

Very understandable, Alvescot decided as he kicked off his boots and shed the ruined breeches, wincing at the pain in his wrist. He and Frederick had been much the same build, and he found that the breeches he donned fit admirably. Had Mrs. Damery noted his build, or had she simply given instructions that something be found for him? He shrugged off his curiosity about the matter. Of far greater interest was who all those people on the entry porch had been. At the time it appeared to him that there must have been at least a dozen of them, but on cooler reflection he decided the number might have been smaller, though not by a great deal. She wouldn’t have had time to invite all of them here just to meet him, since he’d only written a few days previous of his coming. Which would indicate that they were residents, perhaps even that idiot who had crashed into his curricle. And now he came to think of it, there was something vaguely familiar about the young man, though Alvescot was unable to place him precisely.

By the time his meal came, a tray with a tankard of ale and thick slices of meat and cheese, he had recovered something of his usual aplomb. The accident could not be allowed to put him at a disadvantage with his cousin's widow. He was, after all, a trustee of his cousin’s estate, despite the fact that he hadn’t seen fit previously to exercise any power in the matter. Vanessa Damery, as the other trustee, had been given rather too free a hand, being actually on the spot, but Alvescot meant now to rectify that oversight. In the two years since Frederick’s death at Waterloo a great deal could have deteriorated about the estate and Alvescot meant to see that Frederick’s son inherited the land and buildings in good shape. Though Alvescot stood as godfather to both the Damery children, he had seen neither of them. The boy must be four by now, he decided, and the girl just two. Not exactly ages with which he was familiar.

But he felt a certain righteousness in having finally come to take matters in hand. When he had finished his meal and pushed the tray away from him on the small table, he tilted back in the delicate chair to meditate on how efficiently he intended to sort out the chaos he was sure existed at Cutsdean. It was just as he had decided he would request an immediate interview with his hostess that the fragile back legs of the chair, unused to such a weight on their tiny tips, crumpled beneath him to send him sprawling on the floor, where he gazed in wonderment at the intricate design of the ceiling. His annoyance at this second accident was so great that he grasped one leg of the chair savagely, with the intent of flinging it across the room, but his position was awkward there on the floor and he succeeded only in further injuring his sprained wrist and scraping the broken chair leg across his high forehead.

Hearing the commotion within, his valet, who had just arrived and was on the point of knocking, hastily entered the room to find his lordship groaning with exasperation and pain. Bibury took in the situation at a glance and carefully schooled his face to show not the least trace of amusement at the ridiculous scene.

“Don’t just stand there gawking,” Alvescot snapped. “Help me out of this stupid chair.” When the valet had assisted him to his feet, Alvescot disgustedly regarded the ruins of the painted chair, using all his willpower to restrain himself from kicking at it, which doubtless would only result in a broken toe for his effort.

“I don’t know why people insist on having such flimsy furniture,” he grumbled. “As though it weren’t bad enough to be put in the smallest possible bedchamber, she has to try to kill me with chairs that disintegrate under a normal-sized man.”

Bibury was rapidly gathering up the remains of the chair, which he calmly pushed out into the hall during Alvescot’s monologue. “Shall I have a look at that scratch, milord?” he asked when he returned.

“What scratch?” There was a mirror behind him, and Alvescot swung around to see the reddening scrape across half of his forehead. The earl was not particularly vain about his looks, since he didn’t think them anything out of the ordinary, but he considered the garish red abrasion disturbingly uncouth. He could not recall any instance to mind, save during the war in the Peninsula, when any gentleman of his acquaintance had appeared in public with such a mark upon his physiognomy. A long, soulful sigh escaped his lips and he met Bibury’s eyes in the mirror. “It doesn’t need any attention,” he admitted, “but my wrist is aching damnably. Have you something to wrap it?”

The little valet nodded and disappeared from the room. Alvescot cautiously seated himself on the delicate bench before the mirror, drawing his uninjured hand through his straight brown hair. He was considering how long it would take the minor wound to heal, and he paid no attention to his own image. His hazel eyes mournfully assessed the brushburn, knowing it would take several days for its traces to entirely disappear. Which wouldn’t be so awful, except that he was sure someone was bound to ask him how he had sustained it, since it hadn’t been there after the curricle accident.

Well, he would simply ignore their questions, he decided, since he had no intention of detailing his downfall, so to speak. Alvescot felt sure he could turn away any impertinent questions with the simple expedient of a raised brow. Hadn’t Frederick teased him often enough about his haughty demeanor? Not that the earl believed for a moment that it was anything more than a joke. He was accustomed to thinking of himself as being unfailingly polite and rather mild-natured in his dealings with his fellow man . . . and woman.

When Bibury returned with the tape to wrap his wrist, he patiently submitted to the valet’s ministrations, thanking him when the procedure was finished and asking for a pair of his own breeches. With Bibury’s assistance, he was soon returned to some semblance of sartorial acceptability and he went in search of his hostess.

Chapter Two

Alvescot knew his way around Cutsdean without bothering any of the servants. His room was in the West Wing and he unerringly made his way to the Grand Staircase where paintings on the walls followed the slope of the stairs. These paintings did not seem to have changed much since his last visit, though his memory of them was not totally to be relied upon. Certainly they were of the same high caliber as always. Alvescot let himself into the Saloon.

The room was one of Robert Adam’s most impressive achievements, a double twenty-five-foot cube with an enormous Venetian window and four great wall mirrors. Here there had definitely been a change, though perhaps a minor one. The furniture, which ordinarily was all placed back against the walls, had been arranged in groups about the immense room, where it obviously stood permanently, rather than being pulled forward only for gatherings. It made the room look less overpowering and austere, but it was certainly not the fashion of the day. Alvescot decided to reserve judgment in the matter.

Mrs. Hortense Damery, his aunt and Frederick’s mother, was seated in a rather imposing satin-covered chair near the window. His entry into the room did not gain her attention, as she was speaking with another woman, and he came to a halt only a few feet in front of her before she deigned to recognize him. She had been a beauty in her youth, but rather than fading, her looks had sharpened to almost a caricature of herself. The eyes were sharp, the nose sharp, the cheekbones sharp; he had no doubt the tongue was sharp as well. Alvescot bowed to this straight-backed, dour-looking woman who was his aunt.

“James.” Her acknowledgment of his greeting was minimal, and she made no attempt to ascertain his well-being after the curricle accident. Instead, she turned to the woman beside her and said, “This is my sister, Mabel Curtiss.”

Before Alvescot could speak, Mrs. Curtiss belied her aging but elegant looks by snapping, “You
should have a care how you drive, Lord Alvescot. You could have done serious injury to my son.”

“Your son, Mrs. Curtiss, should not have been driving his horses at such a pace around the corner of a building,” he said stiffly. “I believe it was he who put both our lives in jeopardy.”

“Poppycock! I saw it happen and say what she will, Vanessa is only trying to get on the right side of you by saying you were not at fault. After all, Edward is an accomplished whip and he is accustomed to driving the curricle at Cutsdean. As he says, it was the merest bad fortune you should have been there. We very seldom have visitors here at Cutsdean.”

Knowing from experience that it is useless to argue with a prejudiced mind, Alvescot turned back to his aunt. “I hope I fine you well, Aunt Damery.”

“As well as can be expected at my age. One does not recover quickly from such disasters as have been my lot.” Hortense took a dainty bit of lacy handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it to her eyes, though they showed not the least sign of distress above the hawk-like nose.

“Indeed,” the earl agreed, waiting patiently for her to inquire after his own mother. When she didn’t, he told her that the dowager was in excellent health and even better spirits, a bit of information which appeared to offend his aunt unduly.

“She never did take anything seriously,” Hortense accused. “To Lady Alvescot her whole life has been like a magic lantern show, ever a delight, and ever illusory.”

Since Hortense barely knew his mother, Alvescot strove not to allow her to wrench a rejoinder from him. Some people considered that age conferred a privilege on them whereby they could be as rude as possible without suffering the consequences, but his aunt Damery was not precisely one of those people. She had always been rude, though in the intervening years since he’d seen her he had almost managed to forget how impossible she was. Under the guise of being “straightforward” she said precisely what she wished, without regard for propriety or for anyone else’s feelings. He managed to chat with her for a few minutes, though she never waved him to a chair, before inquiring of Mrs. Vanessa Damery’s whereabouts.

Hortense gave a sniff. “She’ll be with the children. I don’t see what use it is to have a nursemaid if you’re going to spend all your time with them yourself. Be sure it’s no fit way to raise a child with all that pampering. They should be toughened up to meet with life’s adversities, not coddled like a pair of sickly lambs. But she won’t listen to me. She has never listened to me. One would think her mother-in-law deserved some deference, but no, she goes about her daily business as though I had never been mistress of Cutsdean, and has all the servants so they refer me to her if I make a suggestion. We never had uppity servants here before she came, I promise you. In the end she’ll be sorry.”

Undoubtedly she would have continued to catalog her complaints, but an elderly man of military bearing stomped into the room. He halted abruptly when he spied Alvescot standing by Hortense’s chair, and surveyed him with a critical eye.

“My brother, Captain Lawrence,” Hortense informed the earl. “Perhaps you remember his name from the battle of Trafalgar.”

Alvescot had no recollection of ever hearing the name before, but he was willing to concede that with the passing of twelve years the name might have slipped his memory. Nevertheless, the gentleman seemed rather old to have served a mere twelve years ago, surely being beyond sixty.

“You
served with Wellington, I hear,” the captain growled. “You’d have done better to have chosen a naval career, sir. A much more exacting and professional responsibility.”