The Indebted Earl

by Erica Vetsch

  “It’s near fifty feet high in some places, sir.” Grayson stood in the doorway. “There’s a staircase that goes down to the water, and a bit of beach when the tide’s out. There was a hedge once upon a time, but the old earl had us uproot it. He thought it cut off too much of the view from the lower floor here.” He crushed his hat in his hands. “Your housekeeper is near destroying the kitchen, sir, but she says she’ll have tea ready soon. There’s another wagon approaching up the drive. Are you expecting more folks?”

  “That will be the baggage wagon. See what you can do to help with the unloading. Bring everything into the upstairs hall, and we’ll sort it later.” The captain sounded tired and resigned.

  A frown crinkled the steward’s brow, but he bowed and disappeared. Almost immediately he was back.

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but that’s no baggage wagon coming. It’s a coach. We haven’t had visitors for weeks, and now folks coming all at once.” He inclined his head toward the door. “Shall I send them away?”

  “Just what I need.” The captain followed Grayson. The front door creaked and complained.

  Mamie eased open the drapes to look out onto the front lawn. “How long will we stay?”

  Sophie had the urge to wrap her hair in a kerchief, grab a mop and bucket, and get to work. The house might be neglected, but the bones were good. A little effort would bring it back, she was sure. “I think the captain feels like he’s fallen out of his boat and into the ocean. Perhaps we could bide here for a few days, until he finds his feet?”

  Mamie nodded. “That would be nice.”

  “I wonder if the captain has any idea what it takes to run an estate.”

  “He can run a ship. Those skills will aid him now.” Mamie leaned toward the window glass.

  “Perhaps we can be of some help to him, to say thank you for bringing us south. We’re not unused to doing the odd domestic chore, are we, pet?” Sophie could name five things right now that needed doing sooner rather than later. Hiring competent staff and a thorough audit of the estate accounts topped the list. She smiled. If Marcus’s friends, the Whitelocks, were here, Diana would be writing out lists upon lists. And if Marcus and Charlotte were here, Charlotte would be searching through books on household management and design to plot her attack on the manor.

  Sophie recognized the strengths of their particular methods, but she tended to rely more on instinct when it came to running a house. Of course, Primrose Cottage was much smaller than Haverly or White Haven or Gateshead.

  “That’s very like you, dear. To want to help. You’re always pitching in somewhere. I don’t think it will hurt us to stay a few days. After all, I wanted to see the ocean again, and here it is in all its glory.” Mamie gestured to the blue water reflecting sunshine in a million points of light.

  Sophie joined Mamie at the front windows. A yellow coach, shabby and travel worn, with mismatched horses neared the curve around the fountain. A mail coach. Perhaps someone had sent a letter or parcel to the estate.

  The carriage stopped, a swirl of grit whirling up from around the wheels, and the driver leapt from his perch. He yanked open the door. A girl, almost a young woman, alighted, a pensive expression on her face. The wind fluttered the ribbons of her bonnet and the sleeves of her spencer. She had barely touched ground when another girl, younger, shorter, jumped down. Hatless, her hair blazed red in the sunshine. Finally, a smaller face peered from the doorway of the carriage. A little girl of maybe five summers with a cluster of chocolate curls about her head. The eldest young woman reached for the child and swung her to the ground, smoothing her hair. The child studied the house, tugging on her earlobe as she took in her surroundings.

  “Well, that’s no letter or parcel.”

  Captain Wyvern stood on the front steps, his back to the windows. The captain’s hands, clasped behind his back, fisted. Grayson hovered by his side, mauling his cap. The young woman said something. The captain jerked as if he’d been slapped.

  “I don’t think this is good news,” Sophie said. Burning with curiosity, she told Mamie, “Wait here, love. I’ll be back.”

  She slipped out as unobtrusively as possible. The steward scuttled away a few paces to make room for her on the top step, and the captain sent her a bewildered, half-angry look.

  “There you go, guv.” The coachman touched his hat brim. “Your girls delivered safe and sound.”

  “There must be some mistake. I don’t have any girls,” the captain protested. “You’ll have to take them back wherever they came from. You’ve brought them to the wrong place.”

  “Oh, but he hasn’t, sir.” The eldest of the three girls spoke rapidly. “This is our destination. Gateshead. The school has closed. Miss Fricklin had no choice, with so few students and the earl not paying our tuition any longer.” She tucked the littlest girl into her side, her arm about her shoulders in a protective gesture. “The headmistress put us on the mail coach and sent us here. She said as we were the old earl’s wards, and we were his responsibility, now that he’s dead, the chore fell to the new earl.”

  “Are you the earl? The dead earl was really old.” The redhead hopped up onto the mounting block and then back to the grass, her hair flopping on her back. “Though you are a bit long in the tooth, aren’t you? Penny said maybe you’d be young and romantic.” She put her hands under her chin and fluttered her eyelashes. Then she stuck her tongue out at her older sister. “Guess you can give up on the idea of the earl falling in love with you, Pen. He’s old enough to be our dad. Maybe older.”

  A bewildered cast overtook the captain’s features, even as a fierce red crept up Penny’s cheeks.

  “Oh, do be quiet, Thea. You’ve got a mouth like a leaky bucket,” Penny scolded.

  “Maybe, but at least I don’t fall in love with every pair of trousers that crosses my path,” Thea shot back.

  The coachman had climbed aboard once more and now threw down three identical bandboxes. Grayson stepped up to retrieve them, setting them on the grass.

  “No returns. They’re yours now, guv.” With a flick of the reins, he set the horses into motion.

  As the clatter of hooves faded, the three girls faced off with Captain Wyvern. No one seemed to know what to say.

  Sophie stepped forward, her heart going out to these little strangers. “Perhaps we should go inside. The girls must be tired from their trip. There’s much to discuss, and I’m sure everyone has questions, but it would be better done in the house, don’t you think?”

  The captain seemed to come to himself. “Yes, of course.” He stood back. “See to their bags, Grayson. Put them in the upstairs hall with the rest when it arrives.”

  The littlest girl’s eyes were wide and wet, and her lower lip trembled. She reached up and tugged on her earlobe. Thea crossed her arms, one foot forward, her chin out in undisguised skepticism. And Penny looked about to cry.

  Sophie couldn’t help but put herself in their slippers. What uncertainties had they suffered? How far had they come, not knowing what would greet them at journey’s end?

  “Come, girls. Welcome to Gateshead. I’m sorry we’re all at sixes and sevens. We’ve only just arrived ourselves.” She held out her hand, guiding them up the stairs. Thea, the redhead, regarded her from the corner of her eye as she passed, then hopped on one foot up the steps. The baby put herself on the far side of Penny as they went by, sheltering in the protection of someone she knew.

  “This place is filthy.” Thea tilted her head way back to look at the coffered ceiling three stories above, where cobwebs wafted in the sunlight from a large fan window. “That’s a cracking banister, though. Miss Fricklin wouldn’t let us slide on the one at the school. She said we’d break our heads, and then where would she be? I always thought she wouldn’t be half as bad off as we’d be with broken heads, but she still wouldn’t let us.” She shrugged, her narrow shoulders lifting beneath her plain yellow frock.

  “And neither will I. Keep your feet on the deck.” The captain fro
wned, his tone dry. “Into the parlor.”

  Mamie smiled welcomingly from the bench seat beneath the front window as they trooped in. “Who are these delightful young ladies?”

  “I’ve no idea, but I intend to find out. Sit.” Captain Wyvern pointed to a sofa, and the girls lined up and sat, the smallest one in the middle. The captain took up station before the fireplace, his hands clasped behind his back. He sent Sophie a look of pure frustration.

  Sophie bit back a sigh. He looked quite forbidding, every inch the commanding officer. How would she have felt as a young girl confronted with such a stern visage? “Perhaps we should start with introductions? My name is Lady Sophia Haverly, and this is Lady Richardson. And you are?”

  “Penelope Pembroke, and these are my sisters, Dorothea and Elizabeth.”

  The redhead scowled. “Why are you being so grand and snooty? You aren’t the lady of the manor. You’re Penny, I’m Thea, and she’s Betsy.”

  Trying to stop a fight before it began, Sophie smiled. “Those names suit you perfectly. I’m known as Sophie, myself. Now, how old are you?”

  Penny put her arm around Betsy. “I’m sixteen.”

  Thea straightened and opened her mouth, but Penny rolled her eyes. “Well, very nearly. I’ll be sixteen in two months. Betsy here is five. She was really too young to be at Miss Fricklin’s, but there was nowhere else for her to be, and the old earl paid extra for Miss Fricklin to keep her.”

  “I’m eleven.” Thea pointed to her chest with her thumb. She twirled one red curl around her finger. “Are you married to him? He looks like he just kissed a sour pickle. Still …” She shrugged. “If you’re going to be grumpy, at least we’re used to it. Miss Fricklin was a grump herself.”

  Laughter bubbled up in Sophie’s chest, and she fought to keep it down. She saw herself in the outspoken Thea. How many times had she aired her mind with no thought to how it would be received?

  “No, I am not married to the captain … I mean the earl. Lady Richardson and I are his guests for the next little while.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “The captain—earl—isn’t grumpy. He’s just surprised. It’s not every day you come to live in a new house and then get three young ladies delivered by parcel post. Perhaps you might offer him a bit of grace and remember your manners. You are a guest in his home.” She kept her tone gentle but firm.

  Thea’s mouth twisted as she gave it some thought before nodding. “Fine.”

  “Where are your parents?” Sophie asked Penny. “Why were you sent to Gateshead rather than to them?”

  “We’re orphans. The earl was our guardian. Our father worked on the estate, and we lived in a cottage near the cliff. Father’s job was to tend the boathouse and sail the earl’s boat for him.” She toyed with a fold of her dress. “Nearly two years ago now, the boat went down in bad seas off the coast. They managed to salvage the boat, the Shearwater, when it washed up ashore near Lyme Regis, but they never found our father.” She kept her eyes downcast.

  Betsy stared at Sophie, as if the story meant little to her. The child had beautiful, round brown eyes and a sweet dimple in her chin. Her slippers dangled several inches from the floor, and she tucked her hands under her thighs. When she caught Sophie looking at her, she smiled shyly, and one hand crept up to tug her ear.

  “And your mother?” Sophie asked.

  Thea bounced up and moved to the window. Every line of her little body was taut, and she crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze fierce.

  “Our mother never recovered from the loss. A few months after Papa died, she passed away.” Penny feathered her fingers through Betsy’s hair, and the little girl leaned into her older sister. “We had never met the earl, but for some reason, he took it upon himself to become our guardian. He sent us to Miss Fricklin’s School for Young Ladies. It’s a small school in Mousehole, down in Cornwall. He paid our fees, and Miss Fricklin kept us there, even over the holidays. But when the earl got sick a few months ago, the money stopped. Miss Fricklin wrote to the steward several times, but she never heard back. There were only a handful of girls at the school, most of them day girls from town, and when our tuition money stopped coming, Miss Fricklin couldn’t keep the school open. She accepted a position in another school, and she sent all the girls back to their homes.”

  “So I guess we don’t have a home now.” Thea turned to face the room. “’Cept here.”

  “Are there no relatives?” The captain asked. “No one to care for you?”

  Penny shook her head. “The earl and the vicar searched right after—” She broke off, as if she didn’t want to say it again. “They weren’t able to find anyone. If the earl hadn’t paid for us to go away to school, we’d have been sent to an orphanage and probably separated.” Her brow knitted as if she realized this was still a real possibility.

  Sophie’s heart wrenched. No family, no one to look after them, and the prospect of being torn apart and sent away from each other?

  “You have no idea why my uncle became your guardian?”

  At his abrupt question, Penny flinched. If only the captain wouldn’t glower and stand so rigidly, as if he were addressing some miscreant in his crew.

  “No, sir. But we’re glad he did.” Penny hugged Betsy. “What we also don’t know is what will happen to us now. Are you going to be our guardian?” The hope in her eyes was undeniable.

  The planes and angles of the captain’s face sharpened. “That’s something I can’t decide right this moment. I have no provisions for children, nor the desire to have any thrust upon me. Bad enough that I have the title and estate to look after. I’m a sea captain, for pity’s sake, not a nursemaid.”

  Crestfallen, Penny looked at Sophie.

  Sophie’s hand had risen to cover her mouth at his harsh words. While they might be true, they were painful to receive. She wanted to temper the wind to these shorn lambs. “You must be tired and hungry. I propose we introduce you to the most important person in the house, Mrs. Chapman. She was rustling up tea for us, and perhaps we can get her to include you in the plans.” Sophie rose and held out her hand to Betsy. “Let’s leave the captain in peace for a while.”

  The child blinked, tugged on her ear, and squirmed around to look at her older sister. At Penny’s nod, she scooted off the couch and put her little hand in Sophie’s. Something warm surrounded Sophie’s heart at the trusting look in Betsy’s eyes. She had been dealt a bad hand, orphaned so young, sent away from home, and now with an uncertain future and a rather stern new guardian, but she was safe in the love and care of her sisters.

  Sophie wanted to scoop her up in a hug and promise her that she would always feel loved and secure.

  But she couldn’t, because the little girl’s future was in the hands of Captain Wyvern, who hadn’t exactly made glad-eyed offers to welcome the girls to Gateshead.

  His life was pitching about like a ship’s deck in a typhoon. He’d lost his command and been cast ashore. He’d tried to fulfill at least part of his promise to Rich by visiting Lady Sophia and Lady Richardson, and he had been drawn into escorting them to the coast. He’d been landed with the earldom and estate his uncle never wanted him to have. And now three little girls had washed up on his shore, looking for a home.

  What was next? An earthquake? Pestilence? Fire?

  God, what are You doing to me? I had such a simple plan laid out, and at every turn, I am thwarted.

  He stood in a corner room off the upstairs hall, in an alcove created by a turret. Surrounded by windows, he looked out on the sea, his heart as restless as the ever-moving ocean.

  The room must have served as the old earl’s study off the master suite, and the proportions and location pleased Charles, the first thing in the house to do so. If he had been going to stay here, he would have made it his sanctum. A place of refuge. He would be half tempted to paint the entire room pale blue to remind him of the captain’s quarters aboard a naval vessel. He smiled ruefully. Wouldn’t his old uncle throw a tirade at the though
t of his house being taken over by a limey?

  Charles heard—of all things—giggling down the hall. As unfamiliar to him as Mandarin. Giggling made him uneasy, with no way to predict an outcome.

  Little girls. He had no experience of them. In fact, if he was truthful, they scared him. Laughing one moment, crying the next. And the small one watched his every move.

  The middle one, if she had been a boy, had the makings of a powder monkey. She was never still, hopping, skipping, and moving all the time. And with a tart tongue to her as well.

  Charles tugged at his collar. Something Thea had said lingered in his mind. That her older sister had hoped the new earl would fall in love with her?

  Preposterous.

  Girls were as unreliable as gunpowder.

  How thankful he was for Sophie—Lady Sophia, he corrected himself. What would he have done had he turned up at Gateshead on his own, with only a steward in residence, and been faced with the arrival of three little girls?

  He might have abandoned ship and left the entire place to them.

  At the moment, Lady Sophia and Lady Richardson were engaged in the task of putting the girls to bed, a reef he was glad to be clear of.

  A tap on the door, and Lady Sophia leaned around its edge. “There you are.” She stepped all the way in. “The girls are just about settled, but would you believe that the little one, Betsy, refuses to go to sleep until you come and say good night? It seems she’s quite taken with you.” A bemused smile played on her lips, and her eyes glowed in the candle flame of the glass lamp she carried.

  Charles frowned. “Me?” The little girl had studied him all through dinner. With the upheaval of the household, they had opted to dine all together in the breakfast room, and for the duration of the meal in those cozy quarters, he had felt her brown eyes regarding him. She had scarcely blinked as she nibbled her food. Had she thought he was going to turn to a sea monster and devour her?