A Beastly Kind of Earl

by Mia Vincy

  Pamphlets and pages and splinters, flying into the air, landing, flying up, landing again.

  Flames burst out of nowhere, curling around loose pages, engulfing them, hungrily seeking more, fed by dry paper and wooden splinters and further echoing blasts. Thea could not begin to imagine how it was done. All she knew was that her precious pamphlets were in a broken heap and that heap was on fire.

  She shook off Gilbert, who whispered, “Oh miss, I am so sorry,” and Thea tried to speak but managed only a croak. Indeed, she was silenced, as she stood surrounded by her enemies, watching it all burn.

  Her words, her story, her hopes, going up in flames. A mountain of flame, climbing higher and higher, sending up a column of smoke.

  How people around must be wondering at that smoke. Perhaps they would be frightened. Londoners lived in constant dread of fires. They would run to help, forming chains to carry water, to speedily douse the flames.

  But Ventnor was too careful for that. Once or twice, she had outsmarted him; how pleased with herself she had been. In the end, it meant nothing. His men watched the fire carefully; they would not let it burn out of control. How cleverly Ventnor had planned this.

  And so they had won. Because it wasn’t about who was good or bad, who was right or wrong. It was about who held the power. All those good people listening to her story, that night in the inn with Rafe. That’s a rotten story, they’d said. Whoever heard of a story where the villains don’t get their comeuppance? Yet that was the story playing out right now. The good people could drink with their friends and share tales of defeated villains, while the powerful people burned down their worlds.

  A breeze swirled through the yard and rose, lifting fragments of pages into the air. One landed on her, a corner of a page, and she plucked it off her dress to read the disembodied words. Other fragments flew up, rising to the top of the smoke and over the wall, fluttering off to land on houses and streets and people’s heads.

  A small laugh bubbled up in Thea’s throat. She had succeeded after all. Her story would be spread all over London, over Hyde Park and St. Paul’s, St. Martin’s and the Thames. Her words would rain down on the city as ash and fragments. “What is this story that is falling from the sky?” someone would say and gather the fragments and piece them together.

  No one would, of course.

  No one would care about one more story from one more woman, one more lost wanderer, trying to be heard. A lone woman, saying, “but listen, please listen, this matters, this is my life.” They were all trying to be heard, all wandering around their own lives, trying to tell their stories and find their way. They would brush off the ash, let the charred pages fall into the mud, and mutter some curse about the dirt of London, the city they could never leave because this was the place where dreams came true. Off they would rush in pursuit of those dreams, and never guess that someone else’s dreams had, literally, gone up in smoke.

  It was a grand bonfire, and Thea stared at it, even as the smoke stung her eyes, even as Ventnor strolled around in front of her. The heat burned her cheeks and she should move away, but instead she closed her eyes, and pretended the heat of the flames was the sun, and she was back at Brinkley End, ready to plunge into the cool lake. Where a pair of strong arms would hold her, keep her anchored to the ground, so she would not be lost on the breeze, like the charred fragments of her dreams.

  “I don’t think I’ll be needing this,” Ventnor said.

  Thea opened her eyes to see him holding out the last remaining pamphlet. Numbly, she took it.

  “A valiant attempt, my dear, but a selfish one,” he added. “After all, your sister is part of my family now, and in harming my family, you would have harmed her. Family is too important. You understand that, don’t you?” He turned to his men. “Make sure everything is burned, and the fire is completely extinguished with no mess left.”

  After a courteous bow to Thea, Ventnor stalked back through the gate, Percy trotting behind him. Around her, his men continued their work, serious and professional.

  “Are you all right, miss?” Gilbert asked, his dark eyes liquid with sorrow, his battered face creased with concern.

  “Of course,” she said, and she was. After all, no one had tried to put her on the flames, so really, she was doing very nicely.

  “I was worried he’d harm you, so I was trying to keep you safe. I never thought he’d go after the crates.”

  “It’s all right, Gilbert.” Thea turned over the pamphlet in her hand. “None of us could have imagined it. Thank you for looking after me.”

  “Where next, miss? You’ve had a terrible shock. You ought not be alone, but Miss Larke and Lady Belinda are not due into London until tomorrow and your sister is still in Brighton. Is there somewhere I can take you?”

  Thea opened the pamphlet to the frontispiece. The Tale of Rosamund. By A Lady. This was all that remained of her story; it did not even bear her name. One last copy, and then her truth would be lost forever.

  One copy was all she required.

  “Warren Street.” Her voice was croaky, as if she had breathed in all that smoke. “To the blue door with the brass mermaid knocker. All that remains is for me to go home.”

  With a shaking hand, Thea lifted that brass mermaid and let it drop. Once. Twice. Three times. The blue door opened. The unfamiliar servant said the right things, proper and polite.

  “I wish to see Mr. or Mrs. Knight,” Thea said.

  Smoke clung to her nostrils and coated her mouth. Her clothes must reek of it; certainly, she could smell it in her bonnet and hair. Inside her dirty glove, her palm was clammy and her fingers ached from clutching her pamphlet so tight.

  “I shall see if they are home. Have you a card?”

  A card. Of all the things she might have thought to bring.

  Thea held out the pamphlet. “Give them that. Tell them it’s their daughter Thea. Tell them I have come home.”

  That was enough to grant her entry to the foyer. She was not invited to remove her bonnet or gloves. She waited, and then Ma and Pa were there.

  Their beloved faces were older, softer, but the same. Wary. Unwelcoming. Disappointed.

  “What are you doing here?” Ma asked in a low voice, as though all of London were gathered in her foyer to overhear. “I made it clear that you are not welcome after the harm you caused this family.”

  “Ma, I have so much to tell you.”

  Pa held up the pamphlet. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “That is my story.” Thea’s voice was too loud in the hushed foyer but she did not lower it. “Percy Russell and Francis Upton lied. I told you the truth but you wouldn’t believe me. You sent me away instead. I wrote it down and had it published, so that I might restore my reputation.”

  Her parents exchanged a look.

  “And what about the Earl of Luxborough?” Ma asked.

  A thousand memories waltzed through Thea’s mind, coming to pause on him smiling at her, sunlight in his brandy-colored eyes. Then his disgust and annoyance, as he sent her away. No. Not that one. She would hold onto the good memories. Those wonderful memories of him would last her. They must.

  “What about him?” she said.

  “Lord Ventnor described your disgraceful behavior, and we were shocked by the earl’s attempt to secure your dowry when he had not the decency to marry you. Are you married to him, after all? Or at least engaged?”

  “I am not.”

  As one, her parents stepped away from her, as if she might transmit some horrid disease.

  It was Ma who spoke next. “But did Lord Luxborough…compromise you?”

  “I suppose in the language of the world he did. Perhaps I erred, but it was my choice and I have no regrets.”

  “And he did not marry you.”

  “He offered. I refused.”

  Pa shook his head. “And you dare speak of your reputation. That is not how we raised you to behave.”

  Silence filled the foyer, echoing off the refined orna
ments. Ma wore a cap of the finest lace, and Pa’s embroidered waistcoat was silk. The very things they had fantasized about owning when they were rich. They had dreamed and planned and worked, and they had won.

  But their eyes… Their eyes were cold, and not at all like Thea’s memories.

  How Pa’s eyes would sparkle with mischief when he called his daughters “Ted” and “Harry,” and winked as he sent them off do boys’ work. How his face would light up with infectious optimism when he wove his bold schemes, as the family huddled around the single brazier and sipped at thin soup. And Ma, her fingers nimble as she stitched, offering ideas that earned Pa’s applause, her smile indulgent at Thea’s childish mischief, her bosom soft when she hugged her daughters and promised everything would be all right, for nobody could stop a Knight.

  When, precisely, had everything changed? How had their buoyant hope hardened into this ruthless ambition?

  “You raised me to believe our family would always be there for each other, whatever happened in the world,” Thea said. “All I asked was that you believe my side of the story. Had you believed me, back then, we could have solved the problem together, as we used to do. I could have gone away, to protect Helen and the Little Ones, but not as an outcast from my own family, not to that long, lonely exile, during which you did not write me a single word. But you chose to believe my enemies. You were meant to love me, but when that love was tested, you did not stand by me. You cast me aside.”

  “Fine speech, Thea, but why should we believe your stories? You have confessed to your own scandalous behavior with Lord Luxborough.”

  “Lord Luxborough believes my stories. If he were here now, as my betrothed? If he told you I spoke the truth, would you find you believed my stories then?”

  They exchanged looks. “Well,” Pa said, “that would be a different matter.”

  Thea nodded sadly. “Because his word is worth more than mine.”

  “It isn’t like that,” Ma said. “But you always did make mischief and break rules, and, well, this is the way the world works.”

  “Oh, I have had quite an education in the way the world works.” Thea studied her grubby pamphlet. How pathetic it was, this sorry tale, the last of its kind. She looked back up. “May I see the Little Ones?”

  Pa crossed the foyer and opened the door, letting in the breeze and sounds of the street. He did not look her in the eye. “You had best go. It would not do for Lord Ventnor to learn that you were here. We cannot afford to displease him.”

  “Ma?”

  Her mother turned away. “It is best, Thea.”

  Thea had nothing more to say, so she went out. The blue door closed behind her.

  “Farewell,” Thea whispered to the brass mermaid and returned to the waiting hack.

  Chapter 25

  Voices from the drawing room had Rafe barging through the door to see who it was. Thea, he thought. Thea had come back.

  It wasn’t Thea. It was a maid setting out tea and biscuits for Socrates.

  The maid bobbed a curtsy and left, and Rafe sat and recalculated the hours. Thea would be in London by now. He should be with her, but she didn’t want him, and he’d vowed not to chase her again, so she was in her beloved London, and he was taking tea with a dead Greek philosopher.

  “Socrates?” Rafe said.

  “Why not? I’m wise,” Nicholas retorted. “And this toga is a sight more comfortable than that royal gown. Bit chilly though. Breeze gets right up into my—”

  “Nicholas.”

  “—Knees.”

  Nicholas poured the tea. Rafe poked at a biscuit. Stale. The whole house was growing stale.

  “You’re really going to that costume party,” Rafe said.

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I still retain hope our Thea will triumph. I would have thought you’d want to be there.”

  “Thea doesn’t want me there. I offered to be by her side and she refused me, though she knew my presence would make all the difference.”

  They would welcome home the Earl of Luxborough and his wife, she had said. He could still hear those words, as he could hear most of that blasted conversation, complete with the bitterness in her tone. A bitter edge did creep into her tone, sometimes. Unsurprising, considering what she had been through.

  “I’m not sure if that poor child knows what she wants,” Nicholas said.

  “She’s not a child.”

  “Very well. She’s a woman. Who lost everything once, and likely fears losing it all again.”

  Rafe shook his head. “I offered her everything, on a silver platter. Had she agreed to be my wife, she would have never lost it.”

  They would welcome home the Earl of Luxborough and his wife.

  The earl’s wife.

  Oh. Oh hell.

  That was why she had turned him down.

  Rafe bounded out of his chair, mind racing, replaying their conversation. Of course. What had she said? I must put the world right, for how can I ever feel secure again, when I do not even have a safe place to stand?

  Bloody hell, yet again, how wrong he had been! Of course marrying him was no solution for her, because she was not a social climber; her dream was not to marry a man with a title, but for her parents to accept her as she was. Until she had let go of her past, she would not be ready for her future.

  His heart broke all over again as realization struck its blow. She needed to do this, and she needed to do it alone. And then…

  Perhaps he should have told her, that he wanted her in his life every day, that she had only to say the word and he would put everything right for her. If only he had told her that he loved her and needed her, like sunshine and water and air.

  Not fair. If he had tried to hold her here, when she had unfinished business, the unresolved questions would have haunted her. She would have been haunted not by the past, but by the futures that she might have had. If he had convinced her to stay, then when times were hard—and he suspected even a happy life had hard times—then she might have doubted. “What if I had gone then?” she might have thought. “What if I had tried? Everything might be different.”

  If her happiness did lie in her home in London, then he had to let her find it, because her happiness had become the most important thing in his world.

  But once she had done what she needed to do, she could look to her future. Rafe could only hope that he lived in her memory. That she could gaze into her memories of him and they would guide her back to him.

  Oh, by all that was sacred, let her come back to him.

  Wherever you are now, Thea, know that I love you, he said to her in his mind. Come back to me, or I shall not know how to live.

  And the house—the house had to be ready. No more stale biscuits. He’d clean the whole blasted place himself. Make it ready for the day she came home.

  “I understand now,” Rafe said to Nicholas. “If I had married her, if she returned as the Countess of Luxborough, she would never have known what they truly thought. And Thea—she needs to know.”

  “And once she knows?”

  “Perhaps, then, she will come back.”

  Nicholas absently shoved up the drooping shoulder of his toga. “You know, Rafe, my boy. If you came with me to London, she wouldn’t have as far to come back.”

  “I’m not going to any blasted costume party.”

  “Of course you’re not,” the bishop said.

  Back at her lodgings, Thea and Gilbert found her trunk sitting on the front step and the landlady blocking her entrance, arms folded, jaw set.

  “This is a respectable house,” the landlady said. “I don’t take women like you.”

  Thea looked down at her trunk, back at the woman’s beady eyes. “What kind of woman do you imagine I am?”

  “Exactly the kind your two gentleman callers told me you were.”

  “You’re mistaken,” Thea protested. “And I paid for the rest of the month.”

  “Least you should do. Now be gone.”

  And
yet another door slammed in her face.

  The crowd streamed past them. Across the street, an anomaly caught Thea’s eye. Two finely dressed gentlemen stood as confidently as if that spot of London belonged to them. Some passersby took care not to jostle them, but several hopeful vendors swarmed around them, like flies on horse dung.

  Yes, indeed. These two gentlemen were horse dung in human form.

  Percy Russell and Francis Upton.

  Her gentlemen callers, she presumed, whose lies had once more lost her a home.

  They saw that she had noticed them. In unison, they doffed their hats and offered deep, mocking bows, their faces tilted up so she would not miss their malicious grins. They had everything, yet everything wasn’t enough, not until they were sure others had nothing.

  Gilbert was hovering. “It’s getting late, miss. We must find you rooms.”

  “It was hard enough the first time, for a woman on her own,” she said. “Maybe I can find an inn outside London.”

  “I know somewhere. I’ll let them know you’re coming.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Miss Larke would have my head if I didn’t make sure you were all right. Not to mention his lordship.”

  His lordship, who had let her go. If only she had stayed with him. But that had not been real either.

  Gilbert lifted one handle of the large trunk. “My cousin owns a coffeehouse near here. You can wait there while I confirm this place for you. I’ll bring a hack.”

  Numbly, because she had no better ideas, Thea lifted the other handle and together they walked to Pimm’s Fine Coffee House. The place hummed with energy, from the men perched on wooden benches, each with a cup or pipe in one hand, and a page in the other. Some read quietly, others muttered in urgent conversations, and a few were in loud argument, ignored by the rest.

  When Thea and Gilbert arrived, everyone paused mid-sentence and looked at them, but all decided at a glance they had no information to offer and went back to what they were doing. As Gilbert located Mrs. Pimm, Thea studied the room.