A Beastly Kind of Earl

by Mia Vincy

  It was in coffeehouses such as this one where young Thea had loitered, dressed as a boy, running errands for a coin. She had practiced her reading on newspapers and memorized the conversations she overheard, to repeat for Pa. How she had basked when Pa’s eyes lit up and he said, “Excellent. I can use that information, oh yes, indeed I can.” What a team the Knight family had been.

  As Thea inhaled the aroma of coffee to chase away the stink of smoke, a peculiar lightness came over her. Again, she recalled that time when her family had watched the hot air balloon, and her childish fear at knowing the balloon would no longer be anchored to the earth. All her life she had done whatever she could to stay anchored, but now her parents had definitively cut the ropes.

  And Thea did not feel fear. She felt…freedom. During those three years of her exile, she could have done anything, gone anywhere. But she had not. She had stayed, stuck, her mind closed to the future, seeing only the past, trying to find her way back.

  How much time she had wasted! Time she could have spent making a new home. She could do that now. Her heart skipped a little, excited by the thought.

  She closed her eyes. Let the noise around her fade. Let another image swim into her mind. The lawn at Brinkley End.

  “Miss? Miss Knight?”

  Thea opened her eyes and blinked at the coffeehouse. Gilbert stood before her, a woman—presumably Mrs. Pimm—at his side. Before they could speak, a boy came to the door. The men fell quiet and the boy yelled out the names of the ships that had arrived in the past hour and their cargo, then accepted his coins and dashed off.

  Gilbert left too. Mrs. Pimm, with the unflappable efficiency of a woman who spent her days tending to men overexcited by coffee and news, put Thea and her trunk in a corner and, unasked, served her tea with bread and jam.

  “Is there anything else you need, miss?” Mrs. Pimm asked, and Thea thanked her and said “No,” which was the truth, because Gilbert and Mrs. Pimm had already given her the one thing she needed most right now: a reminder that the world still held people who knew how to be kind.

  When the carriage entered Mayfair, Thea assumed Gilbert had somehow convinced the housekeeper at Arabella’s house to let her stay, but the carriage did not stop outside the Larke family’s house.

  This house belonged to the Earl of Luxborough.

  Thea tumbled out of the carriage on weak knees, her hands jittery, a thousand butterflies in her stomach. If only those were real butterflies, and she could make wishes on them, and those wishes could come true.

  But Rafe would not be here, in his London house. He would be back at Brinkley End, in his greenhouse, with his plants, and she would be forgotten.

  You are never gone from my mind.

  “Is his lordship in residence?” she asked, and someone said, “No.”

  She had known he would not be there, and indeed he wasn’t, and she was crushed.

  Because if you go, you’re gone. I won’t come after you.

  She had turned him down. She could not stay here. She turned to tell Gilbert that, but the hackney cab was already moving on, and footmen were carrying her trunk inside.

  So Thea let her feet carry her inside too, into that familiar hallway where Rafe had teased her about her shopping.

  The usually stern butler smiled at her, with something like relief.

  “We are so glad to welcome you, Miss Knight,” he said, and diplomatically avoided mentioning that he had previously addressed her as “my lady.” “We’ve had boys looking for you.”

  “Looking for me?”

  “Instructions from his lordship. To make sure you were safe.”

  “But I—I’m not the countess.”

  “His lordship wrote that Miss Knight always has a home here,” said the butler.

  He didn’t explain, but only handed her off to the housekeeper, who led Thea up the stairs, talking all the while. “We’ll send up supper, only a cold tray, if that will suffice, though we can send out for something hot if you wish.”

  “No, that’s fine,” Thea heard herself say.

  “And you’ll be glad of a bath, all that London soot and ash on you…”

  Thea let the chatter wash over her, let herself be helped out of her smoke-scented clothes and into a lavender-scented robe, to wait for her bath to be ready. The smell of smoke clung to her hair.

  They were still filling the bathtub when someone pressed a letter into her hand. She had only seen his precise, bold hand once before, but it was enough to know this was from Rafe. The note was short and impersonal:

  As you know, our invalid marriage gave me access to a sum of ten thousand pounds. I am making arrangements to have that sum transferred to you. Present this letter to my solicitors…

  Thea folded the note and put it aside. Money. He needed that money for his business, but he’d given it to her instead. Ten thousand pounds was a fortune for anyone, let alone a woman with nothing. More than enough to start her life anew.

  Yet he had given her more than money: Once more, the ground had been pulled out from under her feet, but this time, Rafe was there. She had turned him down, but still he had been ready to catch her and cushion her fall. Strong and steady and sure.

  “Miss?” someone said. “Miss, your bath is ready now. Would you like me to stay and help?”

  “Thank you. No,” Thea said. “Thank you.”

  The door clicked shut. Thea stood alone in a room with a steaming copper tub. She slipped off the robe and stepped into the tub. She looked down. Her smoky hair fell about her face. Through the water, her ankles were indistinct white shapes.

  Oh dear heaven, she had got it all wrong.

  Dropping into the water, Thea sat and hugged her knees. She breathed hard, but the hot tears came anyway. She fought them, but still they came.

  Because she had got it all wrong. Too late, she realized what she had done.

  She had tested him.

  She had wanted to be wanted, and she wanted that so badly that she had lost all chance of having it. She had tested her parents’ love, and they had failed her test. And then she had tested Rafe, and the one who failed that test was her.

  All that time she’d been talking about her home in London, priding herself on forming no attachments, hiding even from herself the secret hope that he would beg her to stay. But why would he? When all she had ever said was that she wanted to leave. She liked him chasing her, but that was a game—a fun game, an erotic game, but only a game. She had played a game she didn’t understand, and she had lost.

  What if she had not played this foolish game? What if she had not tested him? What if she had not run in the hope he would chase her? If she had been brave and simply told him the truth: “I love you and I want to be with you always.”

  Because a direct statement demanded a direct response, and Thea was not so brave as she wished. When her dream lay before her—the dream of loving and being loved; of having a safe, loving home with a strong, caring man—she had not dared to believe in it. Instead, she had run.

  In the bathtub, Thea hugged her legs and pressed her eyes to her knees, and wept. The crying made her body hot, and the sobs made her sides ache, but she could not stop. When the storm had passed, the water was cooling and her hair still smelled of smoke.

  Contorting herself, she sank her head beneath the surface to wet her hair, then lathered lavender-scented soap through it. By the time she was dressed again, with her hair dry and brushed and tied in a plait, and she had eaten some food and slid into bed, she felt strangely calm.

  She would soon be in possession of a fortune. The first thing she would do was hire a carriage and drive to Brinkley End.

  Rafe had nothing to do but wait. Wait and roam aimlessly, haunting his own house, until he wound up in the library, where he spied the pages Thea had left behind. He sat in that big leather chair to read them, and soon found himself engrossed in her strange, funny tale of the outcast heroine taken to a castle and the cursed, half-naked man living in the lake. Thea’s
voice was in every line, and, for the briefest of moments, he could fool himself that she was by his side.

  “Found something to laugh at then?”

  Rafe looked up to see Nicholas dressed in green and wreathed in flowers. “Puck?”

  “I make a good Shakespearean sprite, don’t I?” Nicholas said. “I do hope our Thea will be at the costume party.”

  Rafe imagined her in that cat mask. No, no masks. He longed to see her face. He curled his fingers around the pages, then remembered himself and smoothed them out.

  Nicholas flipped the green sleeves of his tunic. “I wonder if our friend William Dudley’s theatre troupe is still performing that play about Rosamund. Although they really need to change the ending. If you came to London, you could see it too.”

  “I’ve already seen it,” Rafe reminded him. “The original performance.”

  How innocent he had been back then, that first night, scowling as Thea told her story. How enthralled her audience had been. Then he and Thea had stood together in the moonlight, where she had ignored his clumsy attempts to comfort her, and cradled his face to comfort him instead.

  Pain shot through him. The pages spilled from his hands and his forehead landed on the desk with a thud.

  “Oh so help me,” he groaned into the wood. “I miss her so bloody much.”

  A gentle hand squeezed his shoulder. Rafe sat back up and stared at the bishop. “I’ve done this all wrong, haven’t I?”

  “You did the best you knew how at the time.”

  “But what if I’ve lost her? What if she needs my help and I’m not there? Anything could be happening in London and I’m not bloody well there.”

  Rafe stared out the window. Down by the lake, Sally and Martha were strolling arm in arm, heads together as they talked. He watched them absently, two more misfits who had found a home here with him, a home he was able to offer only because he was an earl.

  He had never wanted to be an earl—he’d much rather his brother was alive—but he was. The only way he could stop being an earl was to die, and he was not ready to leave this world for good. He had to decide, and decide now, whether or not he wished to be part of this world.

  It was suddenly a very easy decision: This world had Thea in it, and Rafe wanted to be part of anything that had Thea in it.

  Nicholas reached past him and tidied the pages. “One of the many things I admire about you, Rafe, is the way you always went after what you wanted. You never bothered yourself with what anyone else thought; you simply decided and went.” He sighed dramatically. “My carriage is ready, and I must be on my way. How horrid you are, my boy, to make me travel back to London all on my lonesome.”

  “You are not subtle, old man.”

  “I am exceedingly subtle. What a shame you won’t have time to pick out a costume for the party.”

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

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

  Chapter 26

  The next day, Arabella and her mother arrived in London. Gilbert carried messages, Arabella came to collect her, and Thea moved again, this time to join Arabella in her family’s London home.

  Thea had just finished telling Arabella about the destruction of her pamphlets, earning from her friend a vehement “Curse Ventnor. I would cheerfully toss him on a bonfire,” when they were interrupted by the delivery of Arabella’s costume for the Prince Regent’s party: a classical white gown designed to transform her into the Roman goddess Minerva, along with a helmet crowned with sweeping red feathers, an owl pendant, and a silver snake that would wrap around her upper arm.

  Arabella busied herself with arranging the helmet’s mane of plumes so they fell perfectly. “I cannot decide if it is fitting or ironic that I shall be dressed as a warrior goddess the evening I get engaged.”

  Thea stopped petting the silver snake. “Engaged? But you said the Marquess of Hardbury would not have you.”

  “Papa insists I get engaged at the party, so get engaged I shall.”

  “But so soon? And to whom, if not Lord Hardbury?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Arabella tweaked a feather. “I shall run through my list of lords at the party and accept the first one to propose. All I ask is that he be a peer, that I may call him ‘my lord’ for the rest of my life and never trouble with learning his name.”

  Thea watched her friend’s long, slender fingers aligning the feathers. Arabella was so intent on her task that a stranger might believe she found her costume more important than her engagement. Thea was not a stranger.

  “Arabella, if you need help—”

  “Or perhaps your earl?” Arabella interrupted smoothly. “You suggested I might have him once you finished with him. Have you finished with him?”

  “No, I haven’t. I’m going back to him.”

  “Does he want you to go back to him?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. I’m going back anyway.”

  Arabella’s hands stilled and she pivoted away from the helmet. “Thea, what have you done?”

  “I’ve fallen in love, that’s what I’ve done. But I fear I have ruined it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He is giving me ten thousand pounds, which might mean he’s washing his hands of me. I don’t blame him because I got everything wrong. I have lost my dreams and my family, and I have enough money to start a new life, but I don’t care about any of that. All I can think of is putting things right with Rafe. Even if he doesn’t want me anymore, I must let him know that he is loved. I owe him that, at least, after all he has done for me. I shall see his solicitor, request an advance on the money, and use it to hire a chaise.”

  “Perhaps Mama could lend you funds to leave sooner.”

  Thea’s heart skipped at the thought. She could leave tonight! And then— She looked back down at the silver snake and thought of Arabella, going off to the party in two days to get engaged against her will.

  “I could share my money with you,” Thea said. “You could live independently and you wouldn’t need to marry Lord Wotsisname.”

  Arabella shook her head. “It is not the money. The Larke estate is my birthright, but the only way I can inherit it is to adhere to my father’s demands.”

  “But remember, you said you were like a hawk, soaring free in the sky.”

  “Do you know how we train hawks? With a tether. The lead gets longer and longer, until eventually the tether is cut, but in the hawk’s mind, it is always there.” Arabella gave her a pointed look. “Wipe that concern from your face, Thea. I shall make an aristocratic marriage, as I have meant to do all my life. And I shall be able to see you more often, if you would be so kind as to make an aristocratic marriage too.”

  “I shall try,” Thea said and tried to ignore the flutter in her stomach. But she could not abandon Arabella, even if Arabella claimed not to care. “But first I shall accompany you to the Prince Regent’s costume party, if you can smuggle me in, so I can interrogate this Lord Wotsisname of yours.”

  Arabella clearly did not want Thea to interrogate Lord Wotsisname, for she disappeared the moment they were safely inside the Prince Regent’s costume party, and Thea ended up wandering out onto the lawn alone, finding not a genteel party but a carnival.

  Flaming torches lined the garden paths. Acrobats cartwheeled amid the guests, jugglers juggled, and up on a tight rope, rope dancers leaped and twirled. Traipsing through the crowds were jesters, who played tricks on guests or cajoled them into playing risqué games.

  Everywhere, the guests’ costumes created the effect of some grotesque dream. Thea’s Venetian cat mask was heavy on her face, and no one gave her a second look. Although this was not a true masquerade, a few faces were covered like her own.

  Thea sought a glimpse of the Prince Regent or the mysterious Marquess of Hardbury, who had been so unconscionably rude to Arabella. She overheard someone saying he had not yet arrived, and someone else claiming he was on the lawn, and someone
else saying who cared about the marquess, had they heard there would be a spot of theatre inside?

  Watching a play sounded as good a way as any to pass the evening until Arabella let herself be found, so Thea turned to go back inside. And then she saw him: a man wearing a giant lion’s head.

  Rafe!

  She elbowed through the crowd, trying not to lose sight of the lion’s head. All around her were people laughing, jesters dancing. An acrobat went careening past. She had to find that lion. And when she found him, she would— What would she do? Smile at him? Hug him? Oh, there he was. He was turning. She would see his face. He would see her. She would tease him, perhaps, and say—

  Nothing.

  The man in the lion’s head had blue eyes and a red beard and was not Rafe.

  Everything moved to a great distance. The mask clung to her heated face. The crowd roared and subsided, and the lion man greeted a friend and wandered on. Of course it wasn’t him. Too short. Too thin around the shoulders.

  How silly she was, to imagine Rafe would come for her. He had said he wouldn’t. Never mind. Once she got through this awful evening and secured the money, tomorrow or the next day, she would get her carriage and go home to him.

  For now, she would watch the theatre.

  A makeshift stage had been set up in the middle of a ballroom, surrounded by rows of chairs, with standing room behind, most spots already taken. Excited murmurs rippled through the group. “It’s a surprise performance,” someone said, “They decided to do it just this morning…” “It’s a very modern play and quite shocking, I’ve heard,” and “Oh dear, but doesn’t Prinny hold the most dreadfully daring parties!”

  Thea edged along one wall, coming to a stop by some heavy velvet curtains that sealed off an alcove, about the size of a large bed. The alcove was mercifully deserted; likely it was for the servants’ use, to come and go through the door on the other side.

  The beautiful mask was heavy on her face, but she dared not remove it. Especially when she saw her parents come bustling in, rosy-cheeked and excited, dressed as a medieval knight and his lady. Clearly, they were not pining for her.