The Knot of a Knight, page 3
“I am nearly five-and-twenty years old,” Xenobia said in protest.
“But you’re not dead.”
Xenobia blinked. The words had sounded as if they were a scold.
“I was recently introduced to a gentleman whom I think you should meet.”
“Julia,—”
“My husband thinks the world of him, I believe because he knew what to do with Jupiter.”
“Jupiter?” Xenobia repeated, thinking she referred to the planet.
Whatever could a man do to Jupiter?
“His horse, of course. Now, I’m going to see to it you two meet—”
“Julia!”
“Just give him a chance, Xenobia,” Julia insisted. She paused a moment and dipped her head. “I believe he has suffered much like you have, given his wife died in the childbed.”
Xenobia relaxed into the settee. “Is... is he an aristocrat?” She struggled to recall if she had heard or read anything about a lord having lost a wife to childbirth in the last year.
Julia angled her head as if she were attempting to solve a math problem in her head. “He is certainly related to one,” she finally hedged.
“But I haven’t met him?”
Her cousin shook her head. “Doubtful, unless you’ve been at Tattersall’s or the race track.”
Xenobia rolled her eyes. She hadn’t been to the Derby or the Ascot in years, and she had never been to the auction house featuring horses. “You know I have not.”
“Well, then. It’s settled,” Julia announced as she struggled to stand up, the evidence of her pregnancy making itself apparent. “I’ll send you a note as to when you can expect him. I’m off,” she said, at the very moment Chesterfield once again appeared on the parlor threshold.
“Thank you so much for coming,” Xenobia said as she watched her friend take her leave. “And Happy Christmas!”
Allowing a sigh, Xenobia regarded the tray of cakes and helped herself to the last one. With no one to watch, she ate the entire piece with a second cup of tea as she considered Julia’s comment.
Chapter 4
A Call Most Curious
Meanwhile, a Middleton House in Curzon Street, Mayfair
Having endured an hour of listening to gossip shared by four older harpies in his mother’s parlor, Mark Merriweather nearly kissed Pennyworth when the butler appeared on the threshold and indicated with a crooked finger that his presence had been requested elsewhere.
Feigning annoyance at the interruption, Mark bowed to the assembled ladies, made his apologies, and joined the butler at the door. For the first time in nearly an hour, he inhaled air that wasn’t scented with the heavy perfumes the women seemed to favor. “I cannot convey just how happy I am that you thought to save me,” he whispered, breathing deeply once again in the hopes to rid his nostrils of the last vestiges of the cloying scents.
Pennyworth furrowed a bushy brow. “I fear I cannot take credit for the interruption, sir. You have a caller.”
Mark straightened. “I do?” No one ever called on him. They called on his father, the Earl of Middleton. They called on his mother, the Countess of Middleton. They sometimes called on his brother, Luke, apparently not knowing he had moved to his own townhouse in Westminster upon his marriage to Analise Lancaster six years ago.
The only person he could recall ever asking for him was Christopher, Earl of Haddon, and then only because they were scheduled to play cards at The Queen of Hearts, and Haddon had offered to drive.
He had accepted the offer—Haddon had a phaeton that was the envy of every young buck in Mayfair—but would never do so again. The ride to Stafford Street had been as frightening as it had been exhilarating. Not once, not twice, but three times Mark was sure he would be thrown from the bench as the earl took the turns entirely too fast. They had made it to the gaming establishment in one piece, but Mark was sure he had aged a year that night.
At hearing Pennyworth’s throat clearing and a quiet, “Sir?”, Mark shook himself from his reverie.
“You can bring him to my study,” he instructed.
The butler cleared his throat again. “Your caller is Lady Comber, sir.”
Mark blinked before his brows furrowed. He knew of Lady Comber, of course. She was married to Alistair Comber, the man who saw to acquiring horses for the various Middleton equipages through his work at Tattersall’s. Mark might have danced with her at a few balls over the years, but at no point would he expect her to pay a call on him. “You can bring her to my study,” he said, not sure where else they could meet given the parlor was still in use.
“Yes, sir.”
Pennyworth headed for the main stairs while Mark took the corridor in the opposite direction and used the servants’ stairs to get to the ground floor. He entered his office only a moment before the butler’s knock. “Come,” he called out as he settled behind his desk.
He grimaced when he realized a week’s worth of correspondence and invoices was scattered about the desk’s polished surface.
Well, that’s what happened when he didn’t have a man of business, he supposed. The week before, he had discovered Mr. Traynor had been stealing from him.
Embezzling.
The amounts were not a lot—small enough to hide in the accomptant’s overly frequent pay vouchers—but over the course of a year, they had added up to nearly a hundred pounds!
Too embarrassed to discuss the matter with his father, Mark had simply given the man his notice of dismissal and warned him that should he discover any more funds missing from his account, he would report him to the magistrate.
Mr. Traynor pretended ignorance on the matter until Mark held up the sheets from the ledger containing the damning information, and Traynor quickly took his leave.
Without a man of business to see to his business—a public house in Westminster—Mark might become buried in papers.
Pennyworth opened the door and announced his caller.
Lady Comber sailed into his study before dipping a quick curtsy. Mark stood and moved to the side of his desk. He bowed and reached for her gloved hand. “This is a surprise, my lady,” he said before brushing his lips over the kid leather.
“For me, as well, Mr. Merriweather,” Julia said as she settled into the only chair on the other side of the desk.
Mark blinked, not bothering to hide his expression of confusion. The effect was amplified by the lock of hair that dangled onto his forehead, apparently too stubborn to remain with the rest of the dark hair atop his head. “Would you like tea?”
She shook her head. “No, thank you. I’ve just come from having tea with Lady Dunsworth,” she replied.
“Ah, the widow next door,” Mark replied. “She is no longer in mourning?”
“She is not, but she is not why I’ve come to see you,” Julia said. “I’ve come about you.”
“Me?”
“And your lack of a wife.”
Mark blinked as he exhaled, her comment nearly as effective as a punch to the gut. “My lady?” he managed as he wondered what his mother might have arranged behind his back.
She was usually the one to bring up his lack of a wife.
Without preamble, Julia asked, “What exactly are you looking for in such a creature?”
Knowing his jaw was left slack from her first comment, Mark made sure to clamp his mouth shut upon hearing her second. “Truth be told, I didn’t know I was looking, so I’m not sure what I would want.” He had to resist the urge to roll his eyes when he heard his white lie spoken aloud.
“Oh, poppycock, Merriweather,” Julia countered. “I’ve known you for... how many years now?”
Mark finally settled in his chair and gave her query some thought. “Nearly our whole lives, I suppose,” he murmured. Even if they were only acquaintances, they were nearly of the same age. When the earl was in town for Parliament, they attended the same entertainments.
“Is there a reason you haven’t yet wed?”
Scoffing, Mark stared at her. “I don’t really believe that’s any of your concern.”
“Of course it’s not,” she agreed.
The admission had Mark shaking his head.
“But tell me anyway,” Julia insisted.
Furrowing a brow, Mark asked, “Why?”
Julia angled her head to one side in a manner he supposed she used on her husband when she grew impatient with him. “I come with news that you might find... useful,” she whispered.
Mark stared at her a moment, his gaze darting to the papers scattered across his desk. The only news he would find useful at the moment was word of an available man of business. Or a secretary.
Well, he could write his own correspondence. He’d been doing so since he finished university.
News of an available bookkeeper, though? That was news he could use, and he decided to tell her so. “Does she do bookkeeping?” he asked.
Julia blinked before she seemed to think on his query. “I rather imagine she could,” she replied. “She was always very clever when we were younger,” she added. “And all women are raised to keep household accounts, of course.”
Mark’s eyes widened. “You are?”
Once again angling her head to one side, Julia huffed. “It is part of the responsibility of running a household,” she replied. “Now, when were you thinking to buy or let a townhouse of your own?”
That sensation of being punched in the gut once again had the air going out of Mark. “My lady, I haven’t given it any...” He allowed the sentence to trail off when he remembered that only a half-hour ago, when he was trapped in the parlor with his mother’s callers, he had wished for his own place.
Nothing too elaborate. Bachelor quarters in The Albany would do, although he thought the leases there were a bit too expensive. He sighed and amended his response. “I suppose I could look into the matter. With an agent,” he added.
“Good,” Julia said as she gave him a brilliant grin. “Now, tell me what you’d prefer in a wife. Besides the skills to keep your books?”
Without thinking of how she had outmaneuvered him, Mark shrugged and said, “Well, she’d have to be amiable and not insipid. I cannot begin to tell you how insipidness has ruined the current crop of young ladies.”
“Of course,” Julia said, finding she couldn’t disagree. “Go on.”
“Well, I suppose it wouldn’t be too much to ask that she be... attractive?” he hedged.
“Not at all,” Julia agreed. “In fact, I have reason to believe she’s quite beautiful. What else?”
About to ask who the beauty was, Mark instead began to wonder if Julia was going to charge him for matchmaking services. “Not too tall,” he said, momentarily allowing his mind’s eye to capture a vision of the woman he would like on his arm. “She has to be able to ride a horse.”
“Oh, I’m quite sure she can do that,” Julia mused.
Visions of a dark-haired beauty, her long locks spread out on a pillow beneath her head and her entire body beneath his had Mark’s cock responding with an arousal he hadn’t felt in a very long time. “Long hair,” he whispered. “Not too young. Twenty, at least. Educated, if possible. I should like to carry on a conversation of some import over dinners.”
Julia watched as the second son of an earl put voice to his desires. He seemed lost in his thoughts as he recited the traits of his perfect wife while the entire time, Julia tried to imagine what Rachel Roderick looked like now that she was eight years older than when Julia had last seen her.
“I suppose I should mention the need for a modest dowry. Something I can use to ensure she and the children are taken care of when I die,” he said with some awe, as if he had never before given a thought to his own mortality.
“And if it’s more generous than that?”
Mark stared at Julia for a full five seconds before he gave a start. “All the better I suppose, but now you have me worried.”
“Why? So far, she fits all your criteria,” Julia claimed, even though she didn’t know Rachel’s height or if she could do arithmetic well enough to do his books.
“She does?”
Julia lifted one of her shoulders.
“There’s a catch, isn’t there?” he said.
Unable to keep a wince from appearing, Julia finally sighed as she held up her thumb and forefinger and pinched them together. “Oui, petite,” she replied in a whisper.
Mark pounced. “I knew it. There’s always a catch,” he said with good deal of disappointment. “Out with it,” he added on a sigh.
“She’s an aristocrat’s daughter,” Julia stated, noting how he seemed surprised to hear it. “But she was born on the wrong side of the blanket.” Staring at Mark for a moment, she was surprised when he still seemed to be contemplating a possible match.
“When can I meet her?”
Julia blinked. “Well, I have reason to believe she might have arrived in London today, and if that’s the case, she’ll be...” She winced again, attempting to remember the address in the letter Xenobia had shown her. She was fairly sure it was on the back side of The Queen of Hearts, which made sense if Rachel was going to live with her mother for a time.
“Where? She’ll be where?”
Julia jerked back at hearing the desperation in the man’s voice. “The Queen of Hearts. Or at least, the owner there has a room reserved for her in a... a private residence. She won’t live in the gaming establishment, of course,” she stammered.
Julia wasn’t really sure of any arrangements Rachel’s mother might have made on behalf of her daughter, but she knew Rachel would be under her mother’s roof for at least the first few weeks of her stay in London.
What happened after that depended on if Julia could find a husband for her.
For a moment, Mark looked confused, and then he slowly frowned. “So, she is or is she not an employee of The Queen?”
Her mouth dropping open at the insinuation her friend might be a prostitute, Julia quickly stood and said, “She is most certainly not.” A wave of light-headedness had her wavering at the very moment Mark had joined her in standing. When his eyes widened at seeing her momentary distress, he was about to step from around the desk and make an attempt to break her fall should she faint. Julia put up a hand to stop him. “I momentarily forgot I’m not to do that,” she whispered.
“Do what?” he asked in alarm. “Faint?”
She gave him a quelling glance. “Stand up quickly. The baby doesn’t like it.”
“Baby?” The note of surprise in his voice had Julia rolling her eyes.
“Fear not. I won’t be giving birth anytime soon,” Julia replied. “But I will take my leave. It looks as if you’ve quite a lot of business to see to,” she added as her gaze swept over his paper-littered desk. “Do give my regards to Lord Haddon when you see him this evening.”
Mark shook his head. “How is it you know I’m playing cards with Haddon this evening?”
Once again, she gave him a look of disbelief. “It’s Wednesday,” she replied, and with that, she dipped a curtsy and took her leave of the study.
Left standing with his mouth open and his brows furrowed, Mark contemplated his caller’s words and decided he and Haddon really needed to change their ways.
It seemed they had become predictable.
He had become predictable.
Settling back into the desk chair, Mark regarded the papers on his desk and decided to do what he could with them.
All the while he saw to his correspondence, he imagined a dark-haired beauty and what it would be like to be married to her.
It was nearly an hour later when he realized Lady Comber hadn’t told him how much he would owe her for her services as a matchmaker.
Chapter 5
A Daughter’s Return to London
Meanwhile, at The Queen of Hearts, Stafford Street, Mayfair
With a bit of trepidation, Rachel Roderick opened the door to the bedchamber her mother had said was hers. Given the gaudy decor she found in the gaming hell two stories below—red velvet trimmed in faux gilt—and the preponderance of pink in the parlor, she expected to find a similarly outrageous situation behind the dark wood-paneled door.
Instead, the bedchamber was a model of restraint in the art of decorating.
A deep blue velvet canopy draped from the ceiling above the blue velvet-clad bed. The furniture was French, although Rachel couldn’t say from which King Louis it took its style. The drapes matched the counterpane while sheer white ruched fabric separated them from the two clear glass pane windows.
Beneath her feet was a carpet that looked as if it had never been trod upon.
Tempted to remove her slippers—as much to test the thickness of the rug as to ensure she didn’t track anything onto the floor, Rachel instead moved quickly to the bed and set her valise upon its smooth surface.
“Will this do?”
Rachel whirled to find her mother, Violet Higgins, standing on the threshold. As shocked as she had been to see the owner of The Queen of Hearts in her high white wig and scandalous red satin gown upon her arrival at the gaming hell only the hour before, Rachel was equally surprised to see Violet looking a decade younger and dressed far more conservatively now. “Mother?” she guessed.
Despite her age—she had to be at least forty—Violet giggled and moved to pull her daughter into a hug. “You needn’t tease me,” she scolded.
“I didn’t recognize you,” Rachel replied. “You look... so young. Slimmer. And your hair—”
“Is not white, it’s true,” Violet acknowledged as she waved to her coiffure, her natural brown hair streaked with chestnut strands and coiled into a fetching bun atop her head. A number of curly loose strands decorated the back of her neck and her temples.
The tops of her breasts had barely been contained in the bodice of her red satin gown. Now they were hidden beneath a sprigged day gown. “What I wear as the owner of this establishment is merely a costume,” Violet explained as she motioned for Rachel to join her in one of the blue floral upholstered chairs in the adjacent sitting room.
