Kit had already read the letter a dozen times at least. Looking at it again would tell him nothing new—not least because he’d left his reading spectacles downstairs. Nevertheless, restless, he withdrew the paper from his breast pocket and unfolded it.
The blur of indistinguishable words might just as easily have belonged to another, similarly life-changing letter, one he’d received almost a year ago, announcing his younger brother’s death.
That news hadn’t come as a surprise, by any means. A lifetime of rebellion and risk-taking was not likely to lead to any other outcome. Nevertheless, Kit had mourned, was still mourning, his loss. The world’s loss. Edmund’s gifts might have been turned to better uses. Kit found himself now, as then, grateful his parents had not lived to see what had become of their favorite.
Amid the clatter of his thoughts, he hadn’t heard Mrs. Rushworth’s footsteps.
“Lord Stalbridge?” the housekeeper prompted, a hint of worry in her voice.
Kit folded the letter, returned it to his pocket, and glanced toward her before surveying the boxes and crates that surrounded them, the sundry relics of another man’s life. “I want this room cleaned out, thoroughly scrubbed, and set to rights, Mrs. Rushworth.”
“Of course, my lord,” she replied, inclining her head. But she did not immediately turn and go. He had not really expected it of her. “May a body ask why?”
The previous earl, a distant cousin Kit had never met, had been a noted traveler and a collector. The uppermost floor of Ferncliffe had been devoted to storage of his treasures. In the four years since his unexpected inheritance, Kit had focused his attention on other parts of the estate and spared little thought for the house itself, and even less for this particular room. He had had no need for the space. Until now.
“Because, Mrs. Rushworth, the nursery is soon to be occupied.”
“Oh?” A note of speculative interest replaced the previous concern in Mrs. Rushworth’s voice.
“Edmund’s children will be arriving by the end of the month,” he explained.
Silence hung on the air, mingling lazily with the dust motes. “Beggin’ your pardon, my lord,” she said at last, “but I never knew your brother had taken a bride.”
Kit cleared his throat. The housekeeper’s respectability fit her even more neatly than the charcoal-colored woolen dress she wore. If he weren’t careful in his reply, she’d tender her resignation—or at least leave him to clean out the nursery by himself.
“Oh, yes,” he told her, though he, too, had his doubts. The wedding ceremony had probably been conducted under the watchful eye of some poor girl’s father—or at the end of his hunting rifle, or the point of his sword.
“The children and their mother were living with Edmund in Sicily. She contracted his fever while nursing him, it seems, and died some months after,” he said, patting the letter inside his coat. “But her friends did not initially know to whom the children ought to be sent.” The only marvel, really, was how much time had elapsed before someone had asked him to clean up another—and hopefully the last—of his brother’s messes.
To his surprise, Mrs. Rushworth sighed. “Then the poor things are orphans.”
“Yes.” He surveyed the dismal, dirty attic. “I’d like to arrange a suitable welcome for my niece and nephew, Mrs. Rushworth.”
“Of course, sir,” she said, though the enormity of the task had stripped away some of her usual confidence. And his.
How could a man of forty-five, with no wife of his own and no intention of acquiring one, no experience with children, and a house in which even he did not feel welcome, ever hope to give two young children the home they needed?
“You need Mrs. Goode,” the housekeeper declared.
Was this another of Mrs. Rushworth’s matchmaking schemes? Since he’d come into the title, the housekeeper had hinted mercilessly about the need for a Lady Stalbridge.
Kit, who had sworn off marriage twenty years before when the girl he loved had married another, had learned to smile and nod and politely ignore her. This time, however, he blurted out, “I beg your pardon?”
“Mrs. Goode,” she repeated, as if the woman’s identity must be self-evident. “Of Mrs. Goode’s Guide to Homekeeping,” she added by way of explanation, though clearly incredulous at the necessity of providing it. Finally, his baffled expression forced her to concede defeat. “It’s a book, my lord. Very popular. Indispensable advice on how to design, decorate, and prepare the household for any guest or occasion.”
“Ah. A pity this Mrs. Goode cannot come to us in person,” he joked, then sobered as he looked once more about the room. “We need all the help we can get.”
Mrs. Rushworth made a noise in her throat, the meaning of which was indecipherable to him. “I’ll get right to it, sir.” With a curtsy, she bustled away.
Though wintry wind whistled through the cracked window, chilling the air around him, Kit remained behind, thinking not of the work that lay ahead but of Edmund and the adventures they would have had in such a room when they were little boys, when guarding his brother from cuts, torn clothes, and splinters was the biggest challenge he faced.
People had always thought of Kit Killigrew—he thought of himself—as a serious, predictable, orderly sort of man.
Why then had nothing in his life turned out as he had planned?
* * * *
Tabetha Holt Cantwell, Dowager Viscountess Manwaring, stared down at the gray pavement three stories below and sighed. London in November tried her patience. Her friends had long since decamped for the autumn entertainments of the countryside, and the promised amusements of the Christmas season were still weeks away. She was in danger of succumbing to ennui.
Truth be told, she was beginning to find it equally difficult to fend off boredom in the other eleven months of the year.
Early in her widowhood, London had held an allure nothing could match. Her late husband’s country estate, in which she’d been immured for the better part of twenty years, hadn’t even had much of a library. In London, she’d found plays and lectures and books and people. She’d devoured the town’s pleasures like a starving woman presented with a plate of cream puffs.
And now, she had a stomachache.
From the opposite end of the room, her stepson Oliver, Lord Manwaring, echoed her sigh. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to call the noise he’d made a gasp. Oliver had a tendency toward the dramatic, to be sure, but when she’d gone to the window, he’d been lazily leafing through his correspondence, and he was not the sort of young man who generally exclaimed over the post.
In any case, the sound made her turn. His posture, usually teetering on the brink of indolence, was as rigid as she had ever seen it, though his head was bent over his letter. No, two letters, one in each hand. As she watched, he shoved the papers together in one fist and pushed the shaking fingers of the other hand through his dark brown curls.
She began to hurry toward him, then forced her steps to a more sedate pace. She’d been Oliver’s protector for so long, first from his father and later from the world, that the impulse to smooth his hair from his brow and solve his problems was second nature. Sometimes she forgot he was a grown man and might no longer appreciate the interference.
“What is it, dear?”
She had to repeat the question before he looked up from the papers, and when he did, his brown eyes verged on wild. “It seems I’ve landed in a spot of trouble, Mamabet,” he said, twisting his lips into a self-deprecating smile. He’d chosen the name for her on the second evening of their acquaintance, combining the address upon which his father had insisted with a lisped version of what she’d always been called by family and friends, which she’d told Oliver he might use in private.
She laid a hand along the curved back of a green-and-gold striped chair. “What sort of trouble?”
“The ‘detrimental to the name of Manwaring’ sort, I’m afraid.” He punctuated the sentence with a humorless laugh.
Detrimental to the name of Manwaring. His father’s phrase—they’d both heard it often enough. Applied variously to Oliver’s mannerisms, to his lack of athletic prowess and distaste for shooting a rifle, and most recently to his failure to choose a bride and “do his duty by the title,” Oliver’s own desires and future happiness be damned.
The late Lord Manwaring had not been an ideal husband, by any means, but he’d been a truly awful father to Oliver.
She’d entered the marriage in possession of all the desirable accomplishments a young lady might acquire—dancing, drawing, modern languages—and with a clear understanding of what was expected of her.
Or so she’d thought.
As it had turned out, she’d been better prepared by the books on philosophy she’d sneaked from her father’s library and by the childhood games of hide-and-seek she’d played with the boys next door. The old viscount had married her for one reason: to produce a second, more acceptable, son. Tabetha, who liked children very much and who had looked forward to motherhood, had not mourned her inability to give her husband what he most wanted. When he’d died, she had made the proper observances, but she had not mourned him in her heart.
Oliver sank back in his chair, the partner to the one against which Tabetha now leaned, and flung one leg over the rolled arm, in something approximating his usual relaxed pose. Only his death grip on the letters betrayed him.
“You’ve heard, I suppose, of Mrs. Goode’s Guide to Homekeeping?” he asked, not quite meeting her eye.
Tabetha was the sort of person who happily left decisions about the weekly menu to her housekeeper. She preferred the role of guest to that of hostess. And she had given carte blanche to Oliver when it came to redecorating the townhouse they shared.
But one would have to have taken up residence under a rock not to have heard of Mrs. Goode’s Guide, not only because of its ubiquity but because of the controversy it had engendered by making the secrets of elegant design and epicurean delights accessible to anyone who could afford the book: six shillings in paper, ten and sixpence bound.
Who would have suspected that homekeeping could inspire such passion?
She nodded, and though Oliver was not really looking at her, he seemed to have anticipated her answer.
“Well, this,” he said, shifting his thumb to push the uppermost letter forward slightly, “is from a devoted reader, the housekeeper of a bachelor gentleman who has recently been named guardian to the children of his dearly departed brother. He would benefit from Mrs. Goode’s assistance in the preparation of his nursery, she says.”
“And what, may I ask, has that to do with you?” As she spoke, Tabetha stepped around to the front of the chair and sat down, fearing Oliver’s answer might require it.
He favored her with a lopsided smile and lifted one shoulder. “I’m Mrs. Goode.”
Her mouth popped open, as if the hinge of her jaw were powered by a spring beyond her control. But no words came. Only a strangled noise of astonishment in her throat.
“That is to say,” he went on smoothly, ignoring the fact that she was gaping at him like a fish floundering on dry land, “I wrote the Guide to Homekeeping.”
Still wide-eyed, Tabetha glanced around the room. Four years ago, following her husband’s death, both she and her stepson had been eager for a change. Oliver had suggested the rarely used family townhouse in Berkeley Square and promised to make it ready for them to inhabit by the time her mourning ended. He’d always had a flair for colors and textiles, for arranging things just so—much to his father’s chagrin. Tabetha had agreed to remain in the country while Oliver chose every finish, every fabric. He’d overseen the workmen. And he’d recorded the adventure in a series of amusing letters to her that had made a long, dreary winter bearable.
Perhaps his revelation about the book should not have surprised her as much as it did.
“Does anyone else know?” she asked, dragging her gaze back to her stepson.
His lips quirked in a chiding smile that carved a dimple into one cheek, as if he suspected she must already know the answer. “Not even my publisher. We’ve been negotiating plans for a companion volume, you see.” He held out the two letters to her. “And before those plans are finalized, they’re insisting Mrs. Goode go to Hertfordshire. They believe it will be excellent publicity.”
Tabetha scanned the letters. The threat—for what else could it be called?—wasn’t explicit. But clearly the publisher’s willingness to purchase Oliver’s future work depended upon Mrs. Goode’s compliance with this, this...request. She suspected it was at least in part a ploy to find out the identity of Mrs. Goode. But the publisher wouldn’t be happy with what their little scheme uncovered.
Oh, it wasn’t just that Mrs. Goode’s Guide had been written by a man. Gentlemen were forever involving themselves in ladies’ affairs, telling them what to do or wear or buy. That a man would proffer a book of advice on such topics was unremarkable. But gentlemen weren’t actually supposed to be interested in such feminine trifles as home décor, recipes, and furbelows. If word got out that Oliver had written Mrs. Goode’s Guide from a place of genuine enthusiasm for its subject matter, he could expect ridicule, scorn, or worse. He would be driven to set aside yet another of his passions to keep someone else’s peace.
“What will you do?”
He shrugged, as if the matter were of complete indifference to him. As if a measure of his happiness didn’t hang in the balance.
She’d seen that shrug before.
“I’ll go in your stead,” she offered rashly. “I can pretend to be Mrs. Goode.”
One eyebrow shot skyward. “You know I love you, Mamabet. But no, you cannot.”
Did he hesitate for her sake or his own? Was he reluctant to participate in a deception that might damage his stepmother’s character? Or fearful her taste was so execrable that Mrs. Goode’s good name would be ruined?
“We could come up with some pretext for you to accompany me,” she suggested. “That way, you could still make all the important decisions, while I simply play the public part.”
“If I were able and inclined to disguise myself as a lady’s maid,” he scoffed, “I daresay I could also manage a passable Mrs. Goode.”
“Not as my maid,” she said, pushing to her feet and beginning to pace. “As my...my groom?”
His lips pursed, and distaste shuddered through his lithe frame.
“My manservant, then. Or—oh, I know! My secretary. Surely someone as successful as Mrs. Goode would have a secretary?”
She held her breath, waiting for his reaction. After an impossibly long moment, his long leg slid down from the arm of the chair, and his glossy boot settled on the floor beside its mate. “Go on...”
“We will travel to Hertfordshire and present ourselves to...to...” She sat down and scanned the letter again. “To this Lord Stalbridge’s housekeeper as the esteemed Mrs. Goode and her secretary, Mr. Oliver. A day or two of discussion and sketches should be sufficient, wouldn’t you say? Surely your publisher cannot expect more. And then we’ll be free to return to town. You can make all the actual arrangements for the nursery renovation from here, in the name of Mrs. Goode, and no one will be the wiser.”
Oliver leaned toward her. “You would do that? For me?”
“Can you doubt it?” The hurt in her voice was not put on.
Certainly she wasn’t doing it for Lord Stalbridge, whoever he might be. She’d heard the title but could put no face to it. Under ordinary circumstances, her curiosity might have been piqued, particularly when she had so little to occupy her at present. But now, her irritation outweighed her interest. Being a bachelor gentleman did not excuse a total inattention to matters of household management.
Oliver snatched up her hands, heedless of the papers crumpling between them, pulled her to her feet, and planted a smacking kiss on her cheek. “Bless you, Mamabet. I’ll see to everything,” he promised before departing in a whirlwind.
A house in mourning, buried in the country, undergoing improvements, and soon to be filled with the noise of children, was not exactly the cure for the doldrums she’d been hoping for. But she would go gladly, just to help Oliver.
And perhaps for the added pleasure of giving this Lord Stalbridge a piece of her—or rather, the indomitable Mrs. Goode’s—mind.
* * * *
Not quite a week later, Kit looked up from the account ledger he’d been reviewing to find Mrs. Rushworth standing in the doorway of his study, her starched linen handkerchief stark white against her dark dress. He had to peer over the tops of his spectacles to see her expression clearly, a mixture of apprehension and surprise.
“Is everything all right?” he asked. For a moment, she didn’t answer, leaving him to picture any number of catastrophes. “Something in the attic?” Perhaps, against all odds, one of the late earl’s crates had contained something interesting, even shocking....
“No, my lord. That is, everything is fine. It’s naught to do with anything upstairs...exactly.”
He closed the ledger, laid his spectacles aside, and folded his hands on the desktop. “Then what, exactly, is the matter?”
“It’s Mrs. Goode, sir.” Mrs. Rushworth’s mouth moved oddly; he suspected her of chewing on the inside of her lip. Her voice dropped. “She’s here.”
His brain suddenly felt as thick and impenetrable as the crust of an overdone plum pudding. Her whispered words could not seem to pierce it. Mrs. Goode? He’d assumed the name was nothing more than a polite fiction, manufactured to sell books.
Before he could muster even simple questions—How? Why?—Mrs. Rushworth went on. “I wrote, you see, to her publisher. It was you, my lord, who put the notion into my mind. I thought perhaps, if she weren’t too busy, she might offer a little free advice. But I never dreamed...” Now she began to twist her handkerchief with agitated hands.
“She’s here.” In his stuttering attempt at comprehension, the words came out half statement, half question.
“Yes, sir. With her secretary, Mr. Oliver. To help us,” she finished, brightening. “Shall I show them in?”
He didn’t think he’d answered her. He still didn’t think Mrs. Goode was real. But the housekeeper turned from the room with a purposeful stride, and he found himself unfolding his hands, laying them flat on the desktop, and pushing to his feet, just in case.
A moment later, he heard steps along the corridor. Mrs. Rushworth reappeared and curtsied. “Mrs. Goode to see you, my lord.”
A lady entered behind her. A flesh-and-blood lady, clad in a china-blue pelisse. More, he could not say, for her head was turned in such a way that he could see nothing beyond the brim of her bonnet, not a glimpse of her profile, not even the color of her hair.
She was speaking low to someone behind her: her secretary, he presumed. He could not make out her words. But the voice... Its huskiness sent a spark along his spine, like the sensation of a touch tracing the contours of each vertebra. A familiar touch...
He kept his hands planted firmly on his desk, suddenly conscious that if he lifted them, he would reveal two perfect prints, the sweat of his palms dark against the leather blotter.
The secretary, Mr. Oliver, entered behind Mrs. Goode. He was a tall, slender young man with a veritable mop of curly dark brown hair, his coat and greatcoat gaping open to reveal the flash of a pink-and-green checked waistcoat. One of Mrs. Goode’s gloved hands rose to brush a few raindrops from Mr. Oliver’s shoulder, a surprisingly intimate gesture between a lady and her secretary.
Before Kit had succeeded in tamping down a rush of jealousy, to say nothing of examining the absurdity of such a reaction, the woman turned, and his brain—moments before, as solid and impervious as a kiln-fired brick—turned to mush.
Beth—unmistakably his Beth, though twenty years had passed since his parting look at her—was stepping toward him.
She extended that same hand in greeting, and though her steady blue gaze appeared to be focused on him, he could tell she hadn’t really seen him. Not yet.
He knew precisely the moment she did. The flicker of recognition. The flash of disbelief. Her cheeks paled, then pinked, and the outstretched hand drew back and fluttered to the base of her throat. “Lord Stalbridge?”
The necessity of coming forward and helping her to a chair prevented him from giving in to the temptation to sink into one himself. He curled his hand beneath her elbow and eased her to a seat, bending close enough that he could smell her perfume, an inviting mixture of pear blossoms and vanilla.
“Are you quite well...Mrs. Goode?” She had never been far from his thoughts, but the address was strange on his lips. Manwaring had been the fellow’s title, the dour old hermit her father had insisted she marry, all so he could hear his only daughter addressed as “my lady.”
She didn’t answer, merely searched his face, her eyes wide with aching wonder. Then her gaze dropped to his hand, which had slid up from her elbow to curve around her upper arm, a forward gesture, even in spite of their history. He tried to marshal his mind—more custard than pudding, more mortar than brick—to order his fingers to relax their grip.
But every instinct told him never to let her go again.