How I Met My Countess, page 17
The large man turned and wagged a fat finger at his nephew. “Don’t forget, Clifton. Tomorrow. I expect you to be at the corner near Bond Street at precisely three. Take another look at the lady, and then I defy you to tell me how she isn’t the perfect bride.” He winked, then toddled off toward the action, calling out to the man in the orange jacket, bright red waistcoat and puce trousers, “How terribly rude of you, Stewie, my good man, not to invite me over.”
There was an echo of laughter and much made of the marquess’s arrival, and Clifton knew that was because his uncle was considered an easy mark.
“So what is this about a marriage?” Jack asked, helping himself to a drink from the bottle on the table.
“It isn’t quite settled yet,” Clifton said.
Jack eyed him carefully. “Do you love this chit?”
Clifton shook his head. “Love her? Good God, man, I barely know her.”
Jack leaned forward. “Then take it from a man who slipped out of more near betrothal snares than one dares count: get out of Town now.”
Chapter 10
There was a soft scratch on the door, and Lucy sat straight up in bed.
“Lucy?” came a whispered plea from the hall. “Are you there?”
She got up immediately, tossing her wrapper over her shoulders and tying it tight as she went to the door. When she opened it, Mickey came through like a shot, throwing himself into her arms.
“There is more arguing,” he whispered, burying his face into her belly and his arms winding around her in a tight circle. “Downstairs. It sounds like a regular rough and tumble.”
Lucy sighed at his use of cant, but now that he’d roused her, she heard the raised voices as well.
Gracious heavens, were Minerva and Elinor back at it yet again? For after the duchess had left, the two had launched into a lengthy catfight of who-was-to-blame.
Mostly, they’d leveled their charges at Lucy.
“This is all your fault!” Elinor had huffed. “I’ll not be tarred with your sins when I know you impersonated me in Brighton!”
“Dash it all, bother Brighton,” Lucy had shot back. “That was nothing but a horrible misunderstanding, not that I expect you to stand and listen to reason!”
How was it Lucy’s fault that the innkeeper had thought her to be Elinor? He had just assumed that since she was Lady Standon, she was Elinor. It happened all the time.
As for the damage to the inn … well, Lucy hadn’t known that the bills had been directed to the Duke of Hollindrake as Elinor’s expenses and come out of her quarterly allowance, not Lucy’s.
Well, not entirely my doing, she thought with a tinge of guilt, having not quite forgiven Elinor for insisting that Lucy and her entourage move out of the duke’s summer house in Kent to make way for some spontaneous house party of hers.
Oh, they’d dredged up all sorts of accusations and incidents until Clapp had wandered absently into the fray and innocently asked which rooms they were to take, which had set off another round of arguments as to who was to have which chambers, such as they were.
Eventually they’d all retreated to their claimed corners of the house to lick their wounds and, Lucy had to imagine, determine a strategy for extracting themselves from this debacle.
Lucy had spent a better part of the evening trying to come up with some plan on how to escape London.
Escape him.
Not that she thought he wanted her. Or even cared a whit for her.
No, it was what he’d said. “I was looking for Lady Standon …” Unwittingly, he’d come to call on her.
And she knew enough of him to realize it was only a matter of time before he’d discover the truth and return.
For her. The Lady Standon he was seeking.
Oh, bother! Whatever does he want with me? she mused as she did her best to piece together the crumbs of clues he’d offered.
“Some old business” … “Must be all a mistake anyway” … “I can’t see Malcolm having any association with that harridan”…
No, this didn’t bode well in the least. She hugged Mickey closer, her lips pressed together.
Up the stairwell, the voices echoed, growing louder. “I’m going to knock their heads together,” she muttered. Then she said to Mickey, “Come along, you need to get your sleep.”
We all do, she mused as she got the boy tucked back into his own bed.
Then she marched downstairs, forgetting every Mayfair manner her mother-in-law, Lady Charles, had ever tried to instill upon her.
Pushing up her sleeves, she set her jaw. If they were going to act like Seven Dials slatterns, then she was going to treat them as such.
But halfway down the stairs, she spied Minerva standing in the shadows. When she turned and looked at Lucy, Lucy could see that Minerva’s face was ashen with shock.
And so it would be, considering the ugly snippets of accusations coming out from behind the closed doors to the receiving room.
“—why, the gossip is all over Town as to your situation. Mine as well, not that a selfish creature like you would care.” This was punctuated by the thump of a boot heel.
“Who?” Lucy mouthed to Minerva.
“Elinor’s stepfather. Lord Lewis,” Minerva whispered. She cringed as the man began to rant again.
“—a wretched disgrace, that is what you are. You’ve made a fool of me again.” There was more stomping as the man paced about the room.
“—I’ll not let you marry without my cut. I’ll not be left without what I am due, since you made a mess of the last one. You couldn’t even manage to get an heir. An heir, Elinor, then you wouldn’t be in these straits. As worthless as your mother was to me—”
This was punctuated by a loud, hard slap.
Lucy straightened. “Did he just strike her?” For while her father had always been a man who had not minced words, he had never hit his daughters—or any other woman, for that matter.
Minerva nodded. “I feared it would come to this.” She shook her head. “There is little we can do.”
“Little you can do, perhaps,” Lucy declared, “but I am not going to stand for this.”
“You cannot interfere,” Minerva said, catching her by the arm. “You’ll mortify Elinor.”
Lucy shook her off. “I won’t let that man beat her. This is my house too.”
She crossed the foyer and threw open the doors.
Inside, Elinor was slumped to the floor and her stepfather stood over her, about to land another blow. A pinch-nosed lady sat on the couch, watching the proceedings with a cruel gleam in her eyes.
“Hit her again, and it will be the last breath you draw,” Lucy told Lord Lewis.
Brandy fumes filled the room, and from Lord Lewis’s bleary eyes and ruddy cheeks, Lucy knew him for exactly what he was. A drunken bully.
The man paused; in fact, everyone in the room stilled. He looked up at Lucy and sneered. “Who the hell are you?”
“Lucy, please leave,” Elinor begged. “Just leave.”
At this, Lord Lewis’s gaze narrowed. “Lucy? You’re Lucy Ellyson? You dare to tell me what to do? Get out of here, you worthless slut. Go back to the Dials or whatever hole it was your father crawled out of. This is none of your affair.” Then he eyed her from head to toe. “Or stay if you want. That is, if you put out like your fancy whore of a mother does.”
Apparently Lord Lewis had never heard the tale of Monday Moggs.
Be a lady, she could hear Lady Charles plead. Don’t let your temper get out of hand.
“Please leave,” Elinor whispered again.
But it was a different sort of advice that stuck in Lucy’s resolve. A bit of wisdom from the erudite pockets of Rusty and Sammy.
Always carry a bess with you, lass. It can be used to break more than the hinges off a door.
She crossed the space and grabbed one of the empty candlesticks from the mantel. It wasn’t as versatile as a bess, but it would do.
“Get out!” she ordered, waving the heavy silver piece at him. “Get out of our house, and don’t you ever dare to darken these doors again or you shall see how much of the Dials still flows in my veins.” She waved the candlestick at Lord Lewis and the glowering woman, even as she caught Elinor by the arm and tugged her up, then shoved her toward Minerva.
The lady on the settee rose up. “Oh, move away, Fenton. Good God! She’s mad!”
“I’m beyond mad,” Lucy told them. “If you ever dare raise a hand to Elinor again—”
“I’ll raise my hand to any bitch I want. Including you,” Lord Lewis said, lurching forward, but only for one teetering step. Then he froze, his eyes bugging out.
Lucy glanced briefly over her shoulder, relieved to find the formidable sight of Thomas-William in the doorway, pistol in hand and pointed at the man.
The lady screeched again, but she was silenced by a sharp retort from Lord Lewis. The pair of them edged out of the room and then out the door, all under the watchful, unforgiving gaze of Thomas-William.
But before Lucy could push the door closed, Lord Lewis shook his fist at Elinor. “Don’t think this is over, you worthless bitch. I’ll be back. I want your sister. You can’t keep her forever. The law is on my side.”
Lucy had heard enough. She slammed the door shut, then latched it quickly. With her back against it, her fingers still clenched to the latch, she looked up at Thomas-William. “Thank you.”
He huffed and said nothing, shaking his head and turning back into the shadows of the house, as if such occurrences happened so often that this one was hardly worth mentioning.
Elinor trembled in Minerva’s arms, and they both gaped at Lucy as if they were seeing her for the first time.
As if they had never witnessed such a horror. She braced herself for the lecture on being ladylike. Of not butting into private business. Of restraint.
So it was of some shock when Minerva said, “Well done, Lucy. Oh, very well done.”
If that wasn’t enough to bowl Lucy over, Elinor swept across the foyer and took Lucy into her shaky grasp, drawing her into a tight embrace. “Dear heavens, can you ever forgive me?”
“Or I?” Minerva said, crossing the room and putting her tentative arms around the two of them.
Minerva, hugging?
“Whatever are we to do?” Elinor whispered after a few moments. “There is no one to help us.”
“No, Elinor. We have each other,” Minerva said, stepping back from the other two, as if suddenly remembering her place. Well, nearly. “I think claret and a toast is in order. Isn’t that right, Lucy?” she demurred.
Clifton and his old friend Jack Tremont had retreated to a quiet room in White’s in order to get caught up without interruption, or, as Clifton said, “Avoid my uncle before he takes it in his head that I should propose this evening.”
Jack laughed. “Running from the French? Tsk. Tsk. I have heard better things of you. But in this case, running to ground may be in order.”
“Ah, you know my uncle well,” Clifton said in all earnestness.
They both laughed.
“So you don’t love this chit, but you are going to let your uncle bully you into marrying her?” Jack shook his head and poured a measure of brandy into the two glasses a servant had brought over. “Sounds as high-handed as Parkerton. He used to try every Season to bully me into the parson’s trap with some gel or another.” Jack shuddered at the memory. “So why marry at all? If you don’t like the chit, tell your uncle to bugger off.”
Clifton shrugged. “Can’t. I need the blunt.”
“Hmmm,” Jack mused. As the second son, he could understand that problem—for years he’d been perpetually in arrears, his brother, the Duke of Parkerton, holding the purse strings. Luckily for Jack, he’d married Miranda Mabberly, a cit’s daughter with a penchant for business. She’d turned around his enterprises, and they now lived quite comfortably.
Yet Jack had the added benefit of being madly in love with his wife, having left his old rakish ways behind and losing his old epithet of “Mad Jack.”
Well, nearly. For he’d been a rake for far too long not to recognize the signs.
“There’s someone else,” Jack said, his eyes narrowed shrewdly.
“Don’t be foolish. There isn’t anyone else,” Clifton lied.
Jack arched a brow at him and studied him intently.
Shifting under his friend’s scrutiny, Clifton tried to lie again. “Leave off. There is no one else. When would I have had time in the last seven years to have formed some sort of attachment?”
Jack appeared appeased, for he settled back in his seat. “I suppose not. Why, for a time the only woman I ever saw at Thistleton Park was the butcher’s wife.”
Clifton laughed. “Was she comely?”
“Hardly. But after a few months, she would become oddly attractive.”
They both laughed.
“So what does bring you to Town?” Jack asked. “For I doubt you would have come just at your uncle’s behest.”
“No, it is some odd business of Malcolm’s I’m looking into.”
Jack blanched, for he had been with Malcolm the night he’d been shot. He’d tried valiantly to save Malcolm’s life, but there had been naught to do to save Clifton’s brother.
Yet Jack carried the guilt of it still.
Clifton caught up the bottle and refilled Jack’s glass. “We all knew the risks. That night was no one’s fault, just a mistake,” he said quietly.
It had taken him some time to reach that understanding, but how could he not when he’d seen too many men die over the years? He’d come to realize the fickle hand that could be dealt when it came to who survived and who died.
But Clifton could still see the guilt on Jack’s face and considered another notion. “I was going through my father’s papers recently and discovered that he had set up a trust account for Malcolm. Monies separate from the estate.”
“Good of your father,” Jack noted.
They both knew most men didn’t give much consideration, let alone blunt, to their second or third sons, never mind their natural sons.
“Yes, well, it is a small fortune,” Clifton said. “Enough to get me out of the bind that I am in. I’ve tracked the money to an account, but it is still held in trust—for Malcolm’s heirs.”
“Which is you,” Jack said, raising his glass in toast to his friend’s good fortune.
“You would think, but it has been left to the discretion of Lady Standon. I cannot touch it without her say-so.”
“Lady Standon?” Jack muttered. “But why ever would Malcolm leave his money to Lucy?”
A cold chill ran down Clifton’s spine. “What do you mean, ‘Lucy’?”
“You must have met her. George Ellyson’s daughter, Lucy. She’s Lady Standon now.”
“Lucy Ellyson?”
“Uh-huh,” Jack nodded.
“Lucy Ellyson, George Ellyson’s daughter, is Lady Standon?”
“Yes, the same. So you do remember her?”
Remember her? If only Jack knew. Icy shock settled over Clifton. “Oh, yes, I remember her.”
“She married Hollindrake’s heir, Archie Sterling. Of course he wasn’t the heir then, just a clerk working for some solicitor.”
A bit of stray dialogue from long ago flitted through Clifton’s memories.
“Naught but Archie, the clerk at Mr. Strout’s office … he’s taken a fancy to Lucy …”
“She married him?” he said more to himself than to Jack.
“Oh there was a bit of a hullabaloo over it, especially a few months later, when Archie’s uncle— that old drunkard Lord Edward—up and died, leaving Archie as the next in line. Since the marriage couldn’t be undone, the Sterlings did their best to bring her up to snuff, but you know Lucy—” Jack grinned. “I think the entire family drew a collective sigh of relief when Archie died in that gaming hell and the title passed to Thatcher.” He laughed. “Can you imagine, Lucy Ellyson a duchess?” He shook his head. “Oh, she’s given them nothing but trouble as Lady Standon. Too much of her father’s temper. She’s never been one to suffer fools gladly, and unfortunately, Society is rather overflowing with them.”
Well, on that point, Clifton couldn’t argue, for he found London Society utterly ridiculous. Yet Lucy’s temper aside, why had she married Archie Sterling?
“I’m sorry,” he’d managed to say. “I suppose I should use your married name, but I fear I don’t know it.”
She’d shaken her head. “Lucy will still do, my lord.”
Nor had she told him she was a widow. Or Lady Standon.
His jaw tightened as he remembered how he had teased her about Monday Moggs. “So if he’d had a title, estates, an income and a stable full of well-mannered horses, you wouldn’t have floored him? You’d have let him carry out his nefarious plans?”
Lucy Ellyson had tossed aside the promise she’d made to Clifton and snapped up Archie Sterling, the eventual heir to a dukedom.
Their interview from earlier glowed in an entirely new light. But it left one largely unanswered question.
“Why would Malcolm have left her his fortune?”
He hadn’t meant to say that aloud, but Jack, as it turned out, had his own theories.
“Perhaps he was in love with her. Though I would have thought Mariana, pretty thing that she was, would have been more to his taste. Gads, every man who ever went through that house left half in love with one of them. Glorious creatures, the pair of them.” Jack raised his glass in a mock toast.
Clifton sat back, trying to piece together everything Jack had just given him. “Why ever would she have married him?” he muttered more to himself than for Jack’s benefit.
“Marry Archie?” his friend replied, mistaking the question for curiosity. “I’ve wondered that as well. Must have been for a demmed good reason, for Lucy Ellyson was never a foolish bit of muslin.”
This pulled Clifton’s rising temper into check, because Jack was right. Lucy had never been a girl whose head was turned by a title or wealth.
“Might have done it out of grief,” Jack offered. “Mariana and her father had died. She had no one left, no one to turn to. And there was Archie.” He glanced up at Clifton. “I suppose you can understand that one. I thought for sure you’d never come home after Malcolm died. That day you sailed from Thistleton Park, I told Miranda it was most likely the last time we’d ever see you again. Never known a man so lost in grief and heartbreak.” He reached over and slapped him on the shoulder. “Glad to see I was wrong.”
