Wherein the Earl Disposes of His Daughter
If the earl’s daughter was the pinnacle of English womanhood, Giles thought, then high society had declined in the generation since Richard Rutherford carried off his aristocratic bride. An earl, a countess, a footman, and two innocent Rutherfords had been inconvenienced for this haggard young woman, and she could hardly complete a sensible sentence.
Lady Audrina’s bedraggled appearance was understandable, since she had been on the road for several days. But her confused manner when she roused from her stupor? Ridiculous. She seemed truly not to understand where she was or what the consequences of her actions might be. Drunk, probably.
And Giles had the charge of her while everyone else began dinner.
He slouched against the white-plastered wall next to the door of the washroom, where the lady was supposedly setting herself to rights.
He wished he were drunk. Then he wouldn’t care that he couldn’t feel his frozen toes.
Lord Alleyneham’s carriage had arrived not long before that of the fugitives, and the earl had insisted on being present while his tipsy daughter and her precious suitor were wrested from each other. Under his lordship’s watchful eye, Giles had assisted the eloping gentleman forcefully from the carriage, then hauled him up the servants’ stairs and locked him in a bedchamber. The earl distributed coins to the inn’s servants to ensure they would ignore any knocking or shouts issuing from that room.
“That will do for now, Rutherford.” The earl did not so much speak as proclaim. “I shall decide what is to be done with the runaways next.”
Lord Alleyneham’s mouth was a wide slash, his graying brows hooding deep-set eyes. An ebony-headed walking stick was clutched in one fist, less for support than—from what Giles had observed—hitting people in the ankles. A great lion of a man, the impression he gave was one of bulk, of a size so great that it could not be gainsaid. And Giles was a large fellow; usually he was the one looming over people. To be on the receiving end of folded arms and a glower was both unexpected and unwelcome.
But through his mother, Giles was the grandson of a marquess. Not that such a fact had any bearing on his life, ordinarily, but when faced with a haughty earl it helped him square his shoulders. “When you decide what’s to be done with your unwanted guest, I assume you’ll let me know if I can help,” Giles had replied smoothly, letting the hard American consonants twang in his voice. “It’s been an absolute pleasure so far, getting pulled into your family affairs.”
The earl lifted his chin. “They may yet be yours, young man. I know why you and your father are here in England, and I can help you.”
He knew? He couldn’t possibly know the real reason. No, everyone thought the Rutherfords were simply in England to visit the late Lady Beatrix’s relatives—and purchase jewelry, of course. Richard’s plan to open a London jewelry shop was public knowledge. But his plan for financing it?
“Impossible,” Giles said. No one knew that except Giles and Richard. And no one believed in it except Richard.
“It is not impossible at all,” replied Lord Alleyneham. “Indeed I can help you—if you help me.”
“If I help you? I’ve already helped you.” Giles motioned toward the locked door, on which the would-be groom—Llewellyn, was that his name?—was now pounding. “There’s your help, right in there, imprisoned by the sweat of my brow and the goodness of my heart. As I see matters, it ought to be my turn to be on the receiving end of help.”
“That depends on what happens to my daughter.”
“No, it doesn’t. Might I remind you, I’ve already helped you with your daughter by walling up someone who seemed perfectly ready to marry her. For my part in thwarting young love to suit your whim, you owe me whatever assistance you can provide.”
“Impertinence!” The earl struck his walking stick upon the floor.
In the narrow corridor, the men glared at each other. A competition of scornful eyebrow versus scornful eyebrow, clenched jaw versus clenched jaw. Unfortunately, Lord Alleyneham also had the walking stick, and he brandished it in a most threatening manner.
Had Giles happened upon the pair of them posturing beneath the feeble light of a wall sconce, he would have turned away snorting with laughter. But within the moment, time stilled and teetered. If the earl knew—if he had a single clue that might help the Rutherfords—
“What sort of help can you offer, my lord? Do you have information?” Giles tried to sound conciliatory.
Stubbornly, the earl failed to be delighted at Giles’s fit of manners. His hard mouth crimped, and he said only, “See to it that my daughter is sober before you and she join me in my parlor.”
And off he stumped, leaning on his cane, in the direction of the private parlor. His parlor, he called it, yet the Rutherfords had hired it no more than two hours earlier with the hope of calm and respite.
And dinner. Giles’s stomach pinched eagerly at the thought of boiled meat and heavy bread. English food might be predictable, but hunger could sauce and spice a simple meal into a feast.
All this had passed in a flurry of arrivals and harshness. The earl had left his daughter’s suitor locked up and had handed the care of his drunken offspring to a virtual stranger. How did he know Giles could be trusted? For that matter, how did Giles know the earl could be?
Unease made the back of his neck prickle. Maybe he should have refused to interfere, adventure or no.
And surely the young woman had been in the washroom long enough. By now she had probably either escaped or swooned.
He hammered on the door. “Hullo in there. Did you faint again?”
“Calm yourself, sir.” The voice answered at once, muffled by the wooden barrier. Then the door sprang open, grazing Giles’s still-outstretched fist. “I did not faint.”
The woman who exited the washroom was not, to say the least, what Giles was expecting.
To assist her drooping figure from the carriage into the Goat and Gauntlet, he had cradled her elbow, half supporting her. She was a sturdy woman, no small weight of muscles and curves, with a great pile of inky hair most untidily tumbled and mussed.
When given a bit of privacy, he had assumed she would tidy her dark hair, and indeed she had restrained its tangled curls. She had washed her hands and face; she had set her rumpled deep-red gown to rights.
But the change in her was far greater than the removal of a few creases and smudges. Because as she strode past, she looked him up and down—quickly, a flick of chilly heat—then gave a little shrug. As though she saw every darning in his wool stockings. “Shall we proceed to the dining parlor, sir, or do you require a moment to compose yourself?”
Had she been this tall before? As she passed, the crown of her head was at the level of his eyes. And what sort of room was this that she could enter dizzy and souse-witted and emerge with arrogance and poise? He peered within the mysterious depths, but saw nothing more transformative than a pitcher and basin and a folding privacy screen.
“How kind of you to ask, dear lady. But I’m fine.” With feigned carelessness, he leaned against the wall. “Isn’t there something you’ve forgotten?”
“A great deal, probably. Is there something in particular to which you refer?”
That damnable calm. She might as well have informed Giles that his help was unwanted. Not needed. Certainly not appreciated. Which was no more than he’d been hearing for months. Years, really; all the years since Lady Beatrix first fell ill.
His smile had a sharp edge. “Only the fact that people who wait patiently for young women outside of unfamiliar rooms are usually thanked.”
“Are they? I cannot imagine why. Such behavior seems rather predatory to me.”
Giles snorted, shoving himself upright. “You seem to have recovered your spirit with a vengeance, princess.”
“Lady Audrina Bradleigh,” she said, her accent crisp as a toast point. “And you are Mr. Rutherford, if I recall correctly.”
“You remembered my name. Good job.”
Rude, but he was unsettled. By being ordered about by people he’d never met; by being put in charge of a wilted flower who had turned into a treacherous poppy.
And being offered the possibility of progress—real progress—in their quest for Lady Beatrix Rutherford’s jewels.
When she debuted in society, the marquess’s daughter had been given an elaborate diamond parure. Earrings, bracelets, a necklace, and more; the set of jewels had become the stuff of legend. And perhaps that was all they were, for no one had seen the gems in thirty-five years.
When young Lady Beatrix’s relatives suspected—rightly—that she was planning an elopement, they had searched her belongings, stripping her chambers and person of anything of value. They hadn’t found her diamonds, though.
Richard was sure his canny bride had hidden the jewels before she’d eloped with him to America, and he was equally sure he could now find them again. But he and Giles had traveled northward through the marquessate’s properties, and . . . nothing.
Of course, they might have had more success if they’d been able to search in the open. Since Lady Beatrix had married her American lover without family permission, relations with the English branch of the family had been icy. The suspicious aristocrats granted Giles and Richard houseroom, but as far as the Newcombes were concerned, Lady Beatrix’s jewels must have been stolen by servants decades before. Filched, broken up, pawned, never to be recovered. Searching for them was unseemly and nonsensical.
In this, if nothing else, Giles was inclined to agree with his starchy relatives.
“What has happened to . . . the person who traveled with me?” Lady Audrina’s low voice interrupted Giles’s thoughts.
The second time she’d asked about him. Understandable, Giles supposed, since Lady Audrina had been planning to wed the fellow. Which proved what a ninny she was. “He’s enjoying a bit of privacy in a locked bedchamber. Well, enjoying might not be quite the right word, but he’s there for the present.”
A deep breath made her shoulders rise, then fall. “Good. That’s good. So. We are in York, and you are the end of my adventure. Have I mastered the situation?”
“Nearly, yes. Your father is also here. And mine. And a countess.”
“My mother?” Her brows knit.
“No, this one calls herself Lady Irving.”
“Good God.”
“That was my reaction too, yes.”
“Have you met the countess before today?” At his yes, she brushed past him. “Then let us join the party, since its members are such old friends.”
“Don’t be too sure about that, your majesty.”
She halted as though leashed by his words.
A thin smile played over Giles’s mouth. “You and I, for example, are nothing but acquaintances. Now that I have been inconvenienced to serve in your and your father’s schemes, we shall soon go our separate ways.” He paused. “Also, you’re heading the wrong way. The private parlor is the other direction.”
He shouldn’t have goaded her. He really shouldn’t. Because even though he was tired and cold and hungry, she was all those things, too.
Turning back toward him, she stared, all shadowed eyes and set jaw in the candlelit corridor.
Words of apology were among the most difficult to pronounce, but he made a start. “Look, I didn’t mean—”
“I think,” she said in that lead-crystal voice, “that you are under a misapprehension about me, Mr. Rutherford. Perhaps several.”
Her haughtiness closed off his apology before it got properly under way. “Doubtless, princess. I’m probably full of misapprehensions and mistakes. But I’m also the man who knows where the parlor is, where your father is keen to speak with you.”
That lost look crossed her features again: wild, confused, terrified.
Yes, princess; actions have consequences. He didn’t say this—admirable restraint!—but only stretched out a hand to indicate the correct direction.
She did not follow. “Let us clear the air. First, I am not a princess, but the daughter of a peer of the realm. You ought correctly to call me ‘my lady.’ Second, I am neither stupid nor intoxicated. I was shaking off the effects of being drugged. And third—which you might work out for yourself, given the second fact—I did not arrive here of my own accord.” As she spoke, she steadied herself with a hand against the plaster wall. The flow of words seemed to sap her strength, though her voice never trembled.
“Fine,” Giles said. “I understand. My mistake. Three mistakes.” Many more mistakes than that, actually. He cleared his throat. “I’m . . . sorry.”
Her head jerked, an awkward nod. “I’m sorry that either of us is in this situation.”
“So—you didn’t really elope with that sharp-faced fellow?” This was all he could think of to say.
“He is rather sharp-faced, isn’t he? No, I did not elope with him. I never intended to have anything to do with him again.” And she began to spin a frayed tale about laudanum and her maid—she had her own maid, of course she did—and waking up in the carriage, and being drugged again, and . . .
Finally Giles put up his hands. “Stop. Stop. I don’t need to hear all that. You can tell your father, preferably while I’m sitting before a fire eating dinner and letting my boots dry out.”
“But you believe me, do you not?” There was an unmistakable resemblance to the earl in the defiant way she lifted her chin.
Giles dodged the question. “Your father was certain you eloped.”
“Was he? And is your father correct about everything you get up to?” One of her dark brows lifted, and there was something carnal, suddenly, in the way the words sang through the air, lush and low.
“No,” he admitted.
“Then we need not consider the parental view of the matter, need we?” In the considering tilt of her head, there was judgment.
Now, how had Giles come to be judged? Lady Audrina was the one almost a country away from where she was meant to be.
Ah—no, Giles was split by an ocean from his home, wasn’t he? And his dreams were as wild and distant as any laudanum-bespelled vision.
The lady stood beneath a sconce, and when he stepped closer, he saw strain tightening her features. Eyes of deep green, squinting wariness; a strong nose and cheekbones under shadowed skin; a full mouth, pursed as she held his gaze. Every clean line of her face held pride, but something else, too. Shame, he thought it was. She must be feeling confused. Betrayed. Even a little afraid.
All in all, it was a dreadful expression, as pained as it was painful. The force of it made Giles step back again. “I do believe you,” he said. “And I’m sorry.”
This time, it was not so much an apology as a statement of human feeling. Richard, Giles thought wryly, would have been gratified to hear his eldest employ such politeness.
Again, he extended a hand—just to direct her, not to touch her at all—and together they made their way to the Rutherfords’ parlor. Which was now a minor holding of the Alleyneham earldom.
“There they are,” barked an unfortunately familiar female voice as soon as Giles pushed open the door. “Satisfied that you’ve starved us long enough, Rutherford? May we have the dinner brought in now?”
Lady Irving. The first and loudest to speak up, as always.
Giles had met Lady Irving once in London, during the Rutherfords’ brief venture into the settled bits of England. Richard had, at the time, been sure that he had only to ask and wave about his dollars, and the English would turn over their fusty old jewels to be reset anew. It would have been delightful if he’d been correct about that.
Just as in London, Lady Irving had dressed in silk brighter than any color in nature, her turban and gown clashing hues of red and orange. Though about the same age as Richard, her expression had none of the elder Rutherford’s patient good humor. She was sharp: aquiline nose, angled eyebrows, hard jaw, set mouth. And her voice was the sharpest of all.
Giles ignored her barking as he would that of a misbehaving dog. “Father, you waited for us? I thought you’d have dined already.”
Richard drew back chairs at the laden table for Giles and the troublesome daughter of Lord Alleyneham. “I thought it only polite to wait for you, since you were doing a favor for the earl and his companion.”
“We require brandy,” Lady Irving informed a servant, then fixed bright brown eyes on Richard. “You’ve got it all wrong, man. I’m already doing a favor for the earl, so your son cannot be doing a favor for me.”
“Surely that’s not so.” Richard smiled. “One good deed doesn’t preclude another.”
“You forget to account for haughtiness, Father.” Giles served out a plate of meat and vegetables, then placed it before Lady Audrina at his left. “Hungry?” The lady shook her head violently, as though he’d handed her a plate of smashed toads. After a pause, Giles took the food for himself. “Perhaps I forgot to account for haughtiness, too.”
There were far too many nobles in this room, rarefying the air by putting up their noses. And the servants! Giles was unused to the presence of servants everywhere, slipping about the edges of the room, ever present yet ignored. Upon the arrival of his master, the earl’s tired footman had been required to hoist himself from his chair. Leaning against the wall by the brick hearth, he had fallen into a doze despite the argument that seemed to be ongoing between Lady Audrina’s father and…well, everyone.
“As I was saying,” the earl boomed above the scraping of his own cutlery, “I shall escort Llewellyn back to London myself. He must be seen to return to town without my daughter so that society will not connect their disappearances.”
“Could I not travel to London with you instead, Papa?” Lady Audrina asked. “I tell you, Llewellyn took me from home against my will. Surely if I returned with you—”
“Your will does not enter into the matter.” Lord Alleyneham smacked the table with the flat of his knife. “Were this situation to become known, it would not matter whether you intended to flee London or not. Your departure and your guilt are the same.”
His daughter opened her mouth, and the earl held up a beefy hand. “No. No discussion. I cannot have you endangering our family’s prospects with the scandal of your presence. I do not want you seen in London.” He turned to Richard. “Rutherford, I need your assurance that Audrina will be permitted to travel with you until after the wedding. Naturally, Lady Irving will remain with the party to impart the respectability my daughter requires.”
Giles set down his fork. “Wedding? Whose wedding?”
“My third daughter’s wedding to the Duke of Walpole on the first day of the new year.”
“What does that wedding have to do with us?” asked Giles.
“Third? How many daughters have you?” This from Richard, who always took an interest in personal irrelevancies.
“Five. This one is the youngest.” Without looking at the daughter in question, the earl gnawed at a bit of roast, then drained a glass of the brandy Lady Irving had ordered. “I have no sons, so the disposal of my daughters in marriage is of highest importance for the reputation of our family. A union with the Walpole dukedom will be the finest matrimonial alliance London has seen in years, and I cannot allow any hint of scandal to endanger it. Especially since my two eldest have allied themselves disappointingly, and the fourth seems disinclined to be a part of proper society.”
This would all have sounded sensible, were the earl talking of the behavior of business partners. But his words were as cold as the winter rain. Didn’t his children deserve more care? Richard’s schemes always had family betterment at their heart, even if the end result was quite the opposite. Giles could not help but notice that Daughter Number Five sat stiff as a statue, not touching a bite of food. Not looking as though she was eager to be disposed of. Not looking, for the moment, as though she dared feel anything at all.
But Giles remembered the bleed of painful emotion that had overcome her in the corridor, and he felt an unexpected sympathy with Lady Audrina.
“How uncooperative of your progeny,” Giles said coolly to the earl. “It is obvious that dependent females ought to set aside individual will and do as you bid them.”
Someone kicked him under the table. Honestly, it could have been any of them. “If Llewellyn’s interference is unwanted,” he added more loudly, “then why don’t we simply tie him up and leave him in a cellar until after the duke’s wedding?”
An arpeggio of gasps, from the earl’s drink-deepened rumble through Richard’s baritone and Lady Irving’s contralto. “I did, of course, intend that we should feed him,” Giles said.
“You mistake the matter, young man,” barked Lady Irving. “He must be returned to London at once. You must see that if he arrives in the earl’s company, it will be quite clear that he never eloped.”
“He could have eloped with the earl.”
The earl’s complexion turned a deeper red. “You are vulgar, sir.”
“Do you think so? I’m not even trying. Must be the gift of my American blood.” Giles turned his attention to his dinner, adding, “As long as we’re making observations about behavior, I don’t think much of your manner of asking for a favor, my lord.”
“You don’t have to like it. It is, however, in your best interest to obey.”
Giles felt another pang of sympathy for the earl’s offspring.
“And if you oblige me,” Lord Alleyneham continued, “by giving me your word as gentlemen—assuming such a thing matters to Americans—that you will remain with Lady Audrina and Lady Irving until the ducal wedding goes forward, I will tell you where to find a puzzle box.”
Across the table, Richard’s dark eyes snagged Giles’s. “A . . . puzzle box, you say?” He had to clear his throat before the words resounded clearly.
“One belonging to your late wife.” The earl looked smug. “I told you I had learned of your business in England. You, Mr. Rutherford, are on a treasure hunt—and with the right guidance, you shall find what you desire in time for Christmas.”