‘What the devil did you rip up at her so stiffly for?’ Brendan demanded before the echoes of a door being closed painfully softly could die.
‘She’s a liar, why shouldn’t I?’
‘Because you aren’t Moss any more than she is Miss Court?’
‘That’s got nothing to do with it.’
‘If you truly think that, I’d hate to be in your shoes when she finds out who you really are.’
‘That’s different.’
‘Is it now?’
‘Yes, I had to find out what was going on and it all turned out to be her fault.’
Brendan shook his head and looked as if he didn’t know where to start arguing with that statement. He knew Fergus’s hot temper of old, though, and seemed ready to let him stew, since he murmured something about warning the coachman and grooms of the hasty journey they must make to the capital tomorrow.
Fergus still paced the neglected old library. Why the devil did he feel as if this was the worst betrayal of his vulnerable inner self ever committed?
‘Or maybe it’s because I’m a damned fool and cool, vulnerable Miss Court was a fiction I almost fell for,’ he added, paused in his hasty march and considered Miss Hancourt’s life as a governess and the blight her father’s sooty reputation would have cast over it. ‘I ought to pity her for the scandal that wound itself into every strand of Lord Christopher Hancourt’s life when he set up another man’s wife as his mistress, I suppose,’ he said as he set off again and his brother lounged back against the library table and listened with an infuriatingly knowing smile on his face.
‘If she didn’t inherit a fortune the day her brother turned five and twenty I might be able to forgive her, but she chose to stay here and draw poor Edward Moss into her web of deception.’
‘Lucky you’re not Moss, then,’ his brother pointed out laconically.
Fergus snorted rudely and went back to his pacing. To think he had even considered the wild notion of wedding an upper servant for her sake and all the time she must have been laughing at him behind his back.
‘You know how hard her so-called betters were to Ma when she wed above what they considered her place in life, Brendan. She’s worth a hundred of the idlers who look down their long noses at her, but how could I subject a woman I almost let myself fall in love with to what she’s had to endure since before I was born?’
‘Hmm, see what you mean, but Miss Hancourt’s not really a governess.’
‘She’s not the woman I thought her though either, is she? She played me for a fool, Brendan. How can I forgive her for that?’
‘With difficulty, I should imagine, since you’re a pretty big fool without her help.’
‘Moss was her primer for finding a husband. She’s had no chance to try out her wiles until I came along. A lady of her breeding, looks and fortune will have a whole troop of suitors falling over themselves to win her during the next London Season if she did but know it, but they’re welcome to her.’
‘Are they now?’ Brendan asked with a sly grin Fergus might have been tempted to wipe off his handsome face if they were a decade younger.
‘Yes,’ he said between set teeth, ‘they damned well are.’
Brendan held his right hand up as if conceding the argument, but Fergus knew him a little too well for that and glared at him for good measure.
‘Perhaps I’ll remind you of that when we see her engagement announced in the London papers,’ Brendan said as he inspected his already immaculate fingernails for hidden damage.
‘If you want your teeth rearranged, you do just that,’ Fergus snapped and felt his much-tried temper tug a little harder at its tethers.
‘Pistols or swords?’ Brendan challenged with a dare to beat him at either in his laughing grey eyes he knew Fergus wouldn’t be able to resist.
‘Pistols,’ he agreed with a glance out of the windows to see if the usual grey clouds were about to produce rain, but, no, it was fine enough for what they needed.
‘Best of ten?’
‘A hundred might make my head ache enough to distract me,’ he said with the barest hint of rueful humour breaking through his own personal thunder clouds.
‘Fifty and I hope your bad temper about Miss Hancourt will distract you, so I can get my revenge for you beating me hollow last time.’
‘Best of fifty, then,’ Fergus said and they went to fetch the best of his late lordship’s guns and enough ball and powder to keep their contest going.
* * *
It had helped, he decided, when they declared it a draw and resorted to the gunroom again to clean and put the weapons away again, until tomorrow.
‘Are you going to forgive her then, Fergus?’ Brendan asked at last.
‘No,’ he said baldly and even now the white heat of his fury was dying down a little he couldn’t see a day coming when he would. She had almost been a dream the Earl of Barberry was never going to let himself have before he met Miss Court in the gloom that first day. Miss Hancourt had turned that dream into a nightmare and why should he forgive her for it when she could only have been playing with Moss? He wasn’t Moss, but he might have been. No, she had shown him the true meaning of betrayal so why would he ever forgive her for putting another layer of cynicism around Lord Barberry’s already frosty heart?
* * *
‘I still can’t believe it’s true,’ Caroline said as their carriage finally rolled its weary way through the outskirts of London and even the novelty of it all couldn’t distract her from her former governess’s sins for very long.
‘Nor can I, but Miss Court seems quite certain she is really an heiress and a niece of the Duke of Linaire, so who are we to argue with her when we spent two years trying to believe every word she’s told us?’
‘Thank you, Lavinia,’ Nell said as firmly as she could when her eldest pupil was subtly calling her a liar and she really couldn’t argue, ‘but you must get used to calling me Miss Hancourt if you truly want to stay at Linaire House and not with your own aunt and uncle in Cavendish Square.’
‘Oh, no, they wouldn’t want me even if I wanted to go there.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ Nell argued, although if Lavinia’s maternal relatives had a scrap of love in their aristocratic hearts for their niece they would have taken an interest in her happiness before now.
‘And I want to see how you behave when you’re not pretending to be a governess, of course,’ Lavinia said, as if she was looking forward to watching her former teacher feel uncomfortable in own her skin for once, instead of the other way about.
Nell wondered if she’d made a rod for her own back when she insisted the Selford girls come to London. Too late to regret it now, the mud-spattered carriage was turning into the broad streets of Mayfair and they were nearly at their destination. Far too late to argue again with the stiff, aloof man riding alongside the Earl’s travelling coach as if he didn’t trust her to go unmolested in the most exclusive area of the capital city.
‘So do I,’ Penelope said with a stern nod at her one-time teacher.
Georgiana said nothing; she had refused to speak to Nell since she’d confessed she wasn’t Miss Court but a well-connected heiress. At least she hadn’t stopped talking altogether, Nell reflected philosophically. It would be awkward to introduce a girl who refused to speak at all into her uncle’s home. The Selford cousin who had always seemed most damaged by her family’s folly and neglect was Lavinia, but Nell was beginning to wonder if Georgiana hadn’t been hiding her hurts under a quieter manner. It felt wrong not to find out why she was using silence like a weapon, but she wasn’t the girls’ governess any longer and had lost some of the natural authority a grown-up held over a girl by admitting she’d lied to them all. Perhaps Aunt Barbara or Eve could break through the silent defiance Georgiana had put up against her former governess.
‘Now this house really is grand,’ Penelope said when the horses turned into Grosvenor Square and the coachman halted at Linaire House.
‘Yes,’ Nell agreed hollowly, ‘it really is.’
As a child she was convinced the mansion had a stiff and disapproving soul and saw her as an unwanted interloper. It was Uncle Augustus’s house then—cold and austere and the perfect reflection of his dour personality. Nell shivered; even on the hottest days of summer coming back here had felt like stepping into an icehouse. It was a wonder she didn’t freeze during the two years she’d spent alone here.
‘Nell! Oh, you darling, stubborn girl. It’s so lovely to see you again,’ the Duchess of Linaire exclaimed as she bustled down the grand steps of her latest home as if she wasn’t a duchess at all and took Nell’s dread of coming here clean away.
By the time she had been hugged and scolded and exclaimed over and her four companions made welcome, Nell felt this grand classical mansion could be home after all. It was a lesson in not blaming a place for the temper of its owner and even Georgiana’s stony silence hadn’t survived long in the face of Aunt Barbara’s warm interest in her guests.
‘Now I must thank you two gentlemen for escorting my niece and her charges here safely,’ the Duchess of Linaire said when she could spare the two men the time of day. Nell felt unworthily smug about her aunt’s priorities and hoped it would put surly Mr Moss, her judge and jury, firmly in his place.
‘My name is Rivers, Your Grace, and this is...’
‘He is Mr Moss, Lord Barberry’s land steward...’ Nell heard herself introduce the wretch at the same time as Mr Rivers and stopped. She flushed and waved a hand at that gentleman to continue, but this time her aunt beat them both to it.
‘Nonsense, Eleanor, this young man is quite obviously Mr Rivers’s brother,’ Aunt Barbara said, seeing the fugitive likenesses between the two men Nell ought to have spotted the first time she’d laid eyes on Mr Rivers.
With her piercing artist’s eye Aunt Barbara saw more than any person Nell knew—when she chose to truly look at a person with it, instead of letting her gaze drift over their head to something more interesting. Was Nell glad or sorry the Duchess had come out of her artist’s studio long enough to welcome her here and subject the Earl of Barberry to an eagle-eyed scrutiny? Hard to tell with the truth still ringing in her ears as if they’d been boxed by an angry hand.
‘Of course he is,’ Nell heard herself say numbly.
‘Don’t you dare faint,’ she heard her aunt whisper as the possibility occurred to Nell as well and pride ordered her not to give him the satisfaction.
The Selford girls had gasped, then clung together on hearing this latest betrayal of their trust. Who could blame them for only relying on each other after the two huge lies Nell and Lord Barberry had told them? And she’d been doing penance for much lesser sins for the last two days. Nell glared icily into the middle distance instead of lowering herself to look at the lying toad.
‘I won’t,’ she whispered fiercely.
The similarities between the brothers outranked the differences when she finally managed to glance disdainfully at his lordship instead of ranting at him for what he’d done. Mr Rivers was fair and his eyes were grey rather than blue; his handsome features had some of the softness of youth that his brother’s emphatically lacked, but standing side by side on the carriage sweep in front of Linaire House with the reins of their weary horses in their gloved hands, it was so obvious they were brothers she had no idea how she’d managed to miss seeing it for so long.
‘You had best come inside and talk about it without any onlookers,’ the Duchess said with a glance at the grooms and coachmen as well as the bland, blank windows of the other grand houses in the square.
‘But we’re still in our dirt, Your Grace,’ Mr Rivers protested half-heartedly.
‘We have more important things to worry about than a little mud and the odour of horse, young man,’ Aunt Barbara said magnificently and ordered their mounts to the mews to be pampered until their owners were ready to take them away.
Nell saw the brothers exchange glances as if assessing their chances of escape, then shrug, as if resigned to a scene and resolved to get it over with. How had she missed the cool devilment in the so-called steward’s blue eyes, the imperious nature betrayed by his haughty Roman nose, not to mention his arrogant stance that said no man was his master? Fool, she chided herself as she followed her aunt inside the grand Palladian mansion and reminded herself it was still her duty to put the Selford girls’ feelings first, but how she wanted to rage at the man for kissing her so passionately he woke up a Nell Hancourt even she hadn’t recognised and how he’d condemned her for it when he found out she wasn’t a poor little dependent governess after all. He was the Earl of Barberry and a far bigger liar than she was, but perhaps he’d hoped to set her up as his mistress? What a lucky escape they’d both had, then. But if she felt betrayed by the false rogue, how must his wards be feeling? First their governess hid her true self for two years. Now the Earl of Barberry was unmasked as a man who had skulked about Berry Brampton acting as his own land steward, instead of finally shouldering the responsibility he’d dodged for so long.
‘What a shame my nephew and his wife are spending a few days at Darkmere to celebrate the arrival of Eve’s new half-sister. Colm will be so annoyed that he’s missed you, my lord,’ Aunt Barbara informed the Earl with a regal irony that made Nell want to hug her, even as she shuddered at the idea of her brother meeting this brute at dawn to shoot him for her sake.
She had no doubt Colm could put a bullet in the Earl’s sorry hide wherever he chose, for he was a famous marksman under his other name. Her shiver was for her brother’s horror if he had to fire in anger once again. Colm would suffer if he hurt another human being after the endless carnage of Waterloo and all the battles he’d somehow survived before it.
‘Mr Hancourt will find me at Barberry House in a week or two if he still wishes to make my acquaintance,’ Lord Barberry said, as if quite ready to be challenged when he had the leisure to spare for such a minor matter as his improper intentions towards Colm’s little sister when he’d thought of her as a mere governess.
As if she would tell Colm exactly what they had got up to at Berry Brampton when his lordship thought her fair game. Nell felt so furious on Miss Court’s behalf she wanted to slap the wretch, then rage at him for his sins, but it would take too long to list them and lower her to his level, so she decided a sniff of chilly disdain would have to do instead.
‘You intend to stay at Barberry House and grace polite society with your presence at last then, my lord? The beau monde will be so delighted I dare say you’ll be nigh crushed in the stampede,’ Aunt Barbara said, as if she routed pretenders like him every day before breakfast. ‘Meanwhile, here is my husband; he might be eager to bid you welcome as well, my lord.’ The words if you’re very good sat unspoken in the air as if he was a small boy who hadn’t washed his neck.
‘Were we expecting visitors, my love?’ the Duke of Linaire asked amiably.
Nell smiled warmly at her eccentric scholar uncle, even with the Earl of Barberry looking on as if at a play. She was too fond of her Uncle Horace to pretend not to be in front of strangers and Lord Barberry was one of those, wasn’t he?
‘I’m sure you’re as delighted as I am to welcome our dearest Nell home, Horry,’ the Duchess said with a fond smile at her husband.
‘What, you’re actually going to grant us your company despite all the past rebuffs, are you, miss?’ the Duke asked and hugged her.
‘I am, and these are my former charges, Uncle Horace,’ Nell explained. She managed a smile, despite the Earl’s stormy glower. The girls were his wards, but Nell beckoned them forward to be introduced, despite his lordship’s silent disapproval. ‘This is Miss Lavinia Selford, Uncle Horace. Miss Georgiana, Miss Caroline and Miss Penelope Selford are doing their best to hide behind her for some reason best known to themselves.’
‘No need, my dears, you’re very welcome here and you managed to bring my stubborn niece with you. That’s something the Duchess and I haven’t managed this last year and more, so we’re very grateful,’ the Duke said and made Penny laugh at the idea they had brought Nell here rather than the other way about.
‘We must contain our joy for now, my dear,’ the Duchess intervened, ‘the Earl of Barberry and Mr Rivers are waiting to be noticed.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Rivers, I knew your father at Eton.’
‘I doubt he learned very much there, Your Grace. I hear he was as wild as a mountain pony until my mother tamed him as best she could.’
‘True, but he lacked patience rather than kindness or good humour. I dare say time has taught him that.’
Mr Rivers chuckled. ‘He hasn’t changed very much from the sound of it.’
‘Then be sure to tell him I’ll be delighted to see him if he ever feels like crossing his beloved Irish Sea for a week or two.’
‘I’ll be sure to do that, Your Grace,’ Mr Rivers said, a coolness coming into his eyes as they rested on his half-brother, perhaps recalling why Sir Graham Rivers stayed away from London after he wed the widow of the last Lord Barberry’s youngest son.
‘So you’re the elusive Earl of Barberry, are you, young man?’ the Duke said as if Moss’s worn riding coat and breeches were in no way remarkable on an earl.
Seeing the fine cut and expensive fabric of the old and slightly outdated clothes he must have sent for after she christened him Mr Moss, Nell wondered how she could have deceived herself he was the man and not the master. She recalled the way she’d behaved in his arms only a few nights ago and shuddered at the idea of him smirking at her as he walked away to share her silly, willing vulnerability with his younger brother and perhaps laugh at her in his cups.
‘I am indeed,’ the wretch admitted coolly.
‘Then whilst you may have had a hard journey escorting my niece and these delightful young ladies here and are currently a guest under my roof, I have a good many quarrels to pick with you, sir. The first is why you have let our Nell take your responsibilities on her shoulders for so long? My wife and I have been pleading with her to live with us ever since we got back to England, but, no, she must stay with your wards because nobody else cared tuppence about their happiness and well-being. Now I’ve met you all I can see why our girl here refused to abandon you, but it defeats me why she didn’t bring you here a year ago. There’s room enough for twice as many girls to stay and still leave room to billet an army.’
‘I would not have permitted such an arrangement,’ Lord Barberry argued.
‘Everyone knows you ignored your cousins from the day you inherited Berry Brampton House,’ Nell said hotly. ‘If you have a scrap of feeling in you, then you’ll stay out of their lives now and send them to a good school so they can make friends their own age and learn to enjoy life, instead of always being conscious they were born female so you are the Earl of Barberry and not one of them. It’s far too late to pretend you care about anyone but yourself, my lord,’ she finished with a regal glare she hoped would cinder any memory he might have of her eagerly returning his kisses as if he was a good and decent man.
‘It’s never too late to put things right,’ he snapped.
‘That’s up to your wards. Affection and respect cannot be demanded like a ton of coal or a baron of beef from a tradesman,’ she said so coldly even she shivered.
‘If the Duke and Duchess will have us, I would like to stay here with Miss Hancourt,’ Lavinia surprised Nell by saying, then moving to stand at her side. The other three girls looked at each other and Penny went to her eldest cousin’s other side while Caroline and Georgiana took Nell’s and their loyalty brought tears to her eyes.
‘I should be delighted to welcome your wards to Linaire House until an acceptable compromise can be reached about their future, Lord Barberry,’ Aunt Barbara said blandly, prepared to be diplomatic now she’d got what she wanted. ‘Barberry House has been rented out for a decade, I believe, and must need a great deal of work before it’s ready to house four young ladies and their maids, plus a governess to continue their education and a suitable chaperon for you all.’
The stubborn line of the Earl’s mouth looked set as worked stone now. Nell was sure he would refuse, however sweetly the Duchess of Linaire pointed out he was ill prepared to house four growing girls. They’d resented Nell’s authority when she arrived at Berry Brampton House—how much worse would they be with the guardian who had wanted nothing to do with them for a decade? She was tempted to stand back and let him try, but she loved the girls too much to inflict it on them if there was any chance they could stay here instead.
‘The Duchess is right, Fergus,’ Mr Rivers said rather apologetically.
Nell wanted to shout at him for pacifying the stubborn liar instead of telling him not to be an arrogant fool. Yet her inner idiot treasured the gift of his true name and silently tried it out on her tongue. Fergus. Foolish Nell felt every syllable on her tongue as if it was unique.
‘Barberry House must be threadbare and out of fashion by now,’ Mr Rivers went on. Maybe he was used to finding ways around impasses for his arrogant brother and no longer even realised he was doing it. ‘We have no lady with us to make all right either.’
‘We’re not related to the Hancourts—what reason can there be for them to take the Selford girls into their home, even if I were to allow it?’
‘The world knows my niece had to earn her living before the blind trust her father set up matured on the day her brother was five and twenty. At the moment it’s considered a fine and romantic tale: a poor orphaned girl forced out into the world penniless by her own wicked guardian, my late brother,’ the Duke said in a shrewd summary of the whispers going about the ton. ‘All you need do is go and live at Berry Brampton House for a few weeks, my lord. No more explanation of why your wards are living under my roof instead of your own will be needed. You will seem like a kind guardian and my niece a right-minded and careful lady to come here the moment you put in an appearance there at long last. You could thank her for her care of the girls she has grown so fond of by allowing them to take a holiday here while arrangements are made for their future. That would show how wrong everyone is to call you a care-for-nobody, wouldn’t it?’
‘I seem to have very little choice in the matter,’ Lord Barberry said. ‘As well I don’t want to stay at Barberry House until the upholsterers have been in for a month or two. If we go now we’ll be back at Berry Brampton House by tomorrow evening and you can spread this unlikely story while I catch up with my sins and omissions of the last ten years.’
‘And what a thankless task that will be,’ Mr Rivers said. ‘I can hardly wait to be back in the saddle after our long and uneventful journey here,’ he added ruefully and Nell silently blessed him for trying to lighten the mood.
‘Needs must when Miss Hancourt drives,’ the Earl said disagreeably.
If they hadn’t managed to stop making love in his housekeeper’s sitting room she might be planning their wedding right now. Feeling sick at the very thought of enduring such a hasty and hollow marriage, Nell got through the next few minutes by pretending this was all happening to someone else.
‘And thank goodness we don’t have to make that awful journey again today,’ Caroline said as she watched from one of the drawing-room windows as the half-brothers waved goodbye to the Duke and rode out of sight on lively new mounts provided by the ducal stables.
‘Would you rather have gone home with Lord Barberry?’ Nell asked guiltily, wondering if she had robbed the girls of a chance to know their guardian.
‘No, he doesn’t want us and we’ll have far more fun here,’ Penny said happily.
When the Duke came back in with a procession of footmen bearing food, Penny sat down to toast a muffin by the fire and never mind if she hadn’t had her hair brushed or her travelling dress changed yet. As the Duchess pointed out, they had come a long way and there hadn’t been children at Linaire House for far too long.
‘Plenty of time to sort things out when his lordship has his feet under the table at Berry Brampton and these young ladies aren’t cold and hungry after a long journey, Nell. Sit for a while now and stop fussing, my dear,’ the Duke said and took over toasting duties when Penny almost dropped a muffin in the fire. ‘Ring the bell and tell Biggins we’re not at home to visitors for the rest of the day would you, my love?’ he asked his wife, ‘We’re far too busy to entertain this afternoon.’
Uncle Horace would have made a wonderful father, Nell decided, as she finally took off her bonnet with a sigh of relief. Between the fire and hot tea and muffins she should be warm, but part of her felt cut off from the lively scene around the ducal fireplace. Maybe that bit of her would always feel chilled now the rightful owner of Berry Brampton hated Miss Eleanor Hancourt with such stern passion.