‘I couldn’t let the poor fellow die.’ The truth. Seeing Trefor’s tiny puppy face buried in a wrinkly bundle of black, fluffy fur, Gray had been smitten from the outset. He’d been the runt and empathised.
‘That is very noble of you, my lord.’ The softness in her eyes which had been wholly and exclusively for his dog a few seconds before was now directed at him. Bizarrely, it made him feel taller. ‘Why did you name him Trefor?’
‘Because it reminded me of home.’ Good grief—more truth and one he had never shared. Gray blamed the hypnotic copper flecks in her eyes. Eyes that were coincidentally exactly the same shade as his dog’s—minus the alluring copper, of course. ‘I grew up in Wales. As a child I played on Trefor Beach.’ With Cecily. Always with Cecily. The girl who had lived next door. The deceitful, conniving love of his life who had brought about his youthful downfall. ‘I adored it.’ As he had adored her until she had shredded his heart and stomped all over the remains.
Cecily’s treachery aside, life had certainly been simpler then. Back when he was able to avoid his father because his mother kept Gray out of sight. The beach had been his mama’s favourite place and she had been his absolute favourite person. Certainly the only member of his immediate family who hadn’t found him wanting. ‘I haven’t been back there for years.’ Not since his mother had passed, in fact, and had left him feeling like a cuckoo in a nest with only his overbearing father and equally staid and pompous elder brother for company, regularly disappointing the both of them simply by breathing.
That was when everything in his life had started going downhill—but at least he’d still had Cecily. Still clung to her and all they would have one day, biting his tongue and trying to please his father. An endeavour which had been ultimately pointless in the grand scheme of things, when Gray had never wanted to join the army or the church as good second sons were supposed to do. From his earliest memories, all he had ever wanted to do was raise horses. As a child he had lived in the stables. He’d loved animals. Had a way with them.
He found himself frowning at the buried memory, wondering why it had chosen today of all days to pop into his mind. Routinely, he avoided the past as a point of principle. It couldn’t be changed, so why ponder it? Especially when the moment always held more promise. Or disaster. That wish for a farm filled with the finest horses he could breed was nothing more than all those carefully laid plans had been. A disappointing mirage of a future fate had never intended for him. One he would have loved if things had been different and a fine example of why he preferred now never to look too far ahead or too far behind. He had mourned the loss of that dream almost as much as he had Cecily.
Yet there was something about Suffolk which reminded him of home. Ridiculous, really, when home was more than two hundred miles away and nothing in the universe could ever tempt him to return there. He ruthlessly pushed the memories away, knowing the unwelcome spectre of his past would not help salvage this mission. ‘Please allow me to compensate you for the dress. It is the very least I can do.’
‘It’s only a bit of mud. Nothing that won’t come out in the wash. I have plenty of other dresses to wear this afternoon.’
‘For Mr Hargreaves?’ A faceless man Gray suddenly, and irrationally, disliked.
She smiled and his breath caught. She was pretty beforehand, in a classic English rose sort of way, but that smile did something miraculous to her features. It turned pretty into beautiful. Achingly, uniquely beautiful. ‘For my aunt’s tea party this afternoon.’
‘She has invited half the county,’ said Lady Crudgington with mock solemnity, ‘which in Thea’s world means less than twenty. Aside from being staid, the local society is also distressingly small. The tea will be nought but a hot, claustrophobic room full of dullards. Unbelievably tiresome.’ Lady Crudgington wound her arm through his, her eyes twinkling with mischief. ‘You should come, too, young man. Introduce yourself. Meet your other neighbours and see first-hand how dire they all are, while keeping me entertained with your scandalous maritime stories. Shouldn’t he, Thea? I shall happily vouch for his credentials.’
* * *
Her hair was an unmitigated disaster. So horrendous it had made its way on to her unwritten list of her Worst Hairstyles of All Time. Not quite as bad as the epically awful Fuzzy Chignon of Eighteen Nineteen, when the combination of cold winter rain and Colonel Purbeck’s stuffy drawing room had created a gargantuan tangle of fleece-like spirals that had soared towards the ceiling—but dangerously close. Thea had caught Mr Hargreaves staring, perplexed, at the top of her head three times in quick succession as he sipped his tea, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing either. Hair shouldn’t be vertical. Especially when it had enough pins in it to secure an elephant to the ground.
She resisted the urge to excuse herself to circulate among the other guests, knowing at best it was a flimsy excuse to wander past the mantel mirror and witness the mounting disaster for herself, as she had several times already. With every passing minute her wayward hair became even more wayward and the sight of it would only depress her. If she couldn’t fully tame her hair, how was she ever going to tame the streak of wayward selfishness that ran straight through her? The older she got, the harder it was becoming to behave when the urge hit and Impetuous Thea bubbled back to the surface.
She glanced at the door for the umpteenth time instead and tried to tell herself she was relieved that their new neighbour was not going to make an appearance. Another flimsy lie when she had spent most of the morning, all of luncheon and the entirety of Mr Hargreaves’ conversation thus far thinking about the way Lord Gray’s bronzed skin and intriguing muscles had looked, slicked with water.
Thea had never seen anything quite like it. Even as he had insisted on accompanying them to the boundary of the garden, the thin, wet shirt had been practically and gloriously translucent as he had chatted amiably about his dog and the navy and his utter wretchedness at what he had inadvertently done. When her eyes had begun guiltily wandering to his chest again, she had hung back to play with Trefor and been subjected to the equally enthralling sight of the damp linen clinging to his broad shoulders and back. Like her wayward hair, the wayward part of her character then refused to catch up, so it could feast on the sight for the rest of the way home—and feast it had. Thea was heartily ashamed of herself. Proper young ladies shouldn’t be ogling disgraceful scoundrels. Or worrying about the state of their hair for them either.
It would almost be a relief to see the man fully clothed. But then again, another part of her—the prim, proper, sensible part—never wanted to see him again, in the hope the memory of his body would quickly fade and her silly, flustered pulse would beat again at normal speed. Merely thinking about it all made her cheeks hot.
‘Can I fetch you some more tea, Mr Hargreaves?’ Which she would collect by way of the retiring room and dab mercilessly at those same cheeks with a cold flannel until they became decent.
‘You are most kind, Miss Cranford.’
As she took the saucer from him, she felt his fingers purposely brush against the back of her hand in an obviously flirtatious manner and immediately gritted her teeth. There was something about Mr Hargreaves and his blatant, ardent pursuit of her when her aunt wasn’t looking that raised her hackles, but ingrained politeness made it difficult to call him out on it in a room full of guests. Instead, Impetuous Thea broke free for a moment and she pretended to catch her slipper on her skirt. With more force than was necessary, she sent the cup flying, spilling the last dregs of the tea deliberately in his lap. ‘Oh, I am so sorry!’ She grabbed his napkin and passed it to him, enjoying the way the lukewarm stain quickly seeped into the pale kerseymere fabric. ‘Will you have to go home to change?’ She certainly hoped so.
‘Not at all, Miss Cranford. It is just a drip.’
As was he.
No matter how many times he pressed the match, Thea could not imagine an eternit
y shackled to him. A lifetime of spinsterhood would be more appealing—not that she was resigned to the shelf just yet. At three and twenty, she wouldn’t make a fresh-faced bride, but neither would she be a matron. As Aunt Caro frequently reassured her, there was still plenty of time to find the right sort of husband. Preferably one who regarded her with a heated look in his eyes, rather than her aunt, and wasn’t solely after her money.
He would be respectable and trustworthy, not a scoundrel. Noble in both thought and deed, and—and this part was not negotiable—in possession of enough of his own fortune that hers merely complemented it rather than supplemented it entirely. He didn’t need to be handsome and wear his breeches well. Both would be nice, of course, but they were in no way essential. Thea wasn’t Harriet, after all. No indeed. She enjoyed stability and discipline nowadays far more than the pleasing aesthetics of a broad pair of shoulders. Once bitten, twice shy, and all that. Since the soldier, she had vowed to be sensible and suppress the impetuous, wayward part of her nature that acted on impulse and got her into trouble. Because that same day, while being taken for a fool, she had also learned the hardest of lessons. Her selfish pursuit of forbidden fruit had consequences.
Dire ones.
After she had self-righteously stomped out of the house to dally with that soldier, the worst had happened and her poor uncle had paid the price. Just as her father had all those years previously when he had slammed out of the house, justifiably at his wits’ end with his precocious daughter, and had failed to come home alive. Common sense told her it was an unfortunate coincidence. That fate wasn’t punishing her for two isolated and immature outbursts, done in the heat of the moment many years apart, but she secretly carried the burden of guilt regardless. And while her rational, sensible brain often dismissed her fear as silly, superstitious nonsense, the similarities were too eerie to be coincidence. Two momentous temper tantrums brought about by her own selfish desire to do something quite contrary to the will of others and the two people closest to her heart had unfairly paid the price.
Since then, Impetuous Thea had been locked in a box just in case she was tempted by forbidden fruit again and was only rarely, and cautiously, given an airing when the situation warranted—and never to satisfy one of her own selfish whims.
It had proved to be a constant battle between her rebellious character and her stubborn will, but for the most part she kept a tight lid on the destructive elements of her personality. Since then, her world had been calmer. A trifle repetitive and safe, perhaps, but she was content. She had Harriet and her uncle. Aunt Caro and Bertie. She rode Archimedes. She visited the village and her neighbours. Occasionally allowed Harriet to drag her out to shop. Her world might be small, but she read voraciously, losing herself in exciting romances and adventures in the absence of any of her own. All worthwhile and proper pursuits for a gently bred young lady.
Heavens, even to her own ears she sounded dull. Three and twenty wasn’t old yet, although frequently she felt positively middle-aged. An older, staider, duller version of Harriet who had half as much fun. Nothing dreadful had happened for years despite Impetuous Thea’s constant escapes. She had argued with her uncle at least three times since that night and he was still as robust and full of life as he always was. Of course, without proper supervision, Impetuous Thea would have probably argued with him a thousand times in the last three years if she hadn’t practically chewed through her lip to stop the words coming and then silently seethed in her bedchamber for hours until she was calm again. Maybe it was all that suppressed emotion that was making her feel so unfulfilled?
Or maybe it was her increasing habit of dissatisfied introspection because there were simply too many hours in the day to fill with the proper pursuits she allowed herself. No wonder the disgraceful Lord Gray’s buttocks were taking up so much space in her thoughts. The sight of them had been the highlight of her year!
With an irritated sigh she wandered to the sideboard, conveniently located next to the door and blissful escape, and picked up the teapot. A maid could deliver the beverage back to Mr Hargreaves while Thea avoided him and his wandering hands for the rest of the afternoon.
Horrid man! While she was not averse to a suitor some day, and Lord only knew decent men were thin on the ground in this sleepy corner of Suffolk, she didn’t want one who fitted none of her sensible criteria or who made alarm bells clang in her mind.
Mr Hargreaves had a paltry annual allowance and a decidedly dubious past. He also shared heated looks with her aunt. Three very sound reasons to cross him off her list. The flesh-crawling bit made four, although that was more of a feeling than fact so hadn’t thus far made the list at all. Henceforth, it would be added. There had to be some attraction, or at least the potential for some eventually. As Harriet said, if one had to be bound to a man for all eternity, it was best he be easy on the eye.
Perhaps Harriet was right and she did need more excitement in her life before she settled down with the sensible, independently wealthy husband she would spend eternity with. Then perhaps her life wouldn’t feel so dull even if her choice of husband did. Each day did tend to feel exactly like the previous, blurring and merging into one homogenous infinity of sameness.
Infinity of sameness! Now she was in danger of becoming pretentious to counteract the dullness. Could one be a pretentious dullard? Mr Hargreaves certainly was...
‘Hello again, Miss Cranford.’
At the sound of his deep voice so close to her neck, Thea jumped and poured half of Mr Hargreaves’s tea over the sideboard. ‘Mr Gray... Er...my lord. I’m so sorry, you startled me.’ And despite the fine suit of clothes he wore with impressive aplomb, her errant mind had immediately stripped him of them. She knew exactly how impressive those shoulders were beneath that jacket, and she had seen his bottom. Valiantly, she willed her cheeks not to combust, yet they heated regardless just to spite her.
‘I’m an informal fellow—as you have unfortunately seen. Gray will do just fine.’ He was smiling. Amused. Little crinkles fanned out around his silvery blue eyes. Eyes which were almost wolf-like in their colour.
‘Gray suits you.’ Heavens—she had said that out loud. How frightfully impulsive and bold. Clearly, after her perfectly acceptable run-in with Mr Hargreaves, Impetuous Thea was not safely locked back in her box. She forced her gaze to shift from his hypnotic stare and came face to face with another man. Significantly older. Salt-and-pepper hair and a scowl that could curdle milk.
‘Allow me to introduce you to my second cousin Cedric.’ Gray grinned as the older man bristled. ‘He is a very formal man and prefers to be called Lord Fennimore at all times. Even by family.’
Chapter Three
The rampant disapproval at the use of his Christian name was coming off Lord Fennimore in waves, but Gray was unrepentant. The old man had insisted on accompanying him on this mission because Gray was apparently new to his precious King’s Elite. Two loyal and highly eventful, successful years chasing criminals wasn’t new in Gray’s book, but his commanding officer was a stick-in-the-mud who took for ever to impress. With Flint guarding his new bride and their key informant in their investigation in the wilds of Scotland somewhere, Warriner and Hadleigh minding the fort in London and Lord and Lady Millcroft on a similar mission in Norfolk, Lord Fennimore had reluctantly drafted Gray into front-line duty to prove his mettle, dangling the carrot of the yet undiscussed promotion temptingly in front of his face.
‘Let’s see how you do, young man, and then perhaps we shall talk.’
Hardly a blood-sworn promise, but the best anyone could hope for from the wily, manipulating, tenacious commander of the King’s Elite.
But it was that tenacity which had served them well. Espionage was a long and patient game. After two years of covert, dangerous investigations and far too many deaths, the King’s Elite had severely weakened the dangerous smuggling ring. Thanks to the new Baroness of Penmor, the French ringleader w
as dead, and his co-conspirators scattered in chaos. There was no longer a chance of them restoring Napoleon to power any time soon. However, despite having the names of the high-ranking British traitors who had sold the contraband on the black market, they still had no clue about the identity of The Boss—the elusive, faceless mastermind who had run the English side of the vast operation. So vast it had threatened the British economy as well as its security. The government wanted the traitors rounded up and tried as soon as possible, but without tangible proof of their guilt, all the evidence they had hinged on the testimony of one woman.
Or, in legal terms, and without further proof, hearsay.
They quickly realised they needed more than the word of just one witness if they were to make the charges stick. The Boss had no interest in Napoleon, or laws, or lives. He only cared about profit. Under Lord Fennimore’s guidance the King’s Elite had allowed the dust to settle, watched and waited. A man like The Boss would be ruthless in repairing all they had destroyed and they didn’t have to wait very long for the smugglers, suppliers and greedy distributors to begin to piece together some of the tattered remnants of the operation.
Already, more illegal brandy was trickling back on to British shores and, because they had been allowed to do so unhindered, the smugglers were becoming bolder.
The Boss didn’t know they knew. Nor did he know the net was closing in and they intended to catch him red-handed. The Boss also did not know they had narrowed down his true identity to one of two men. He was either the Earl of Winterton in Norfolk or Gray’s target—and the delicious redhead’s guardian—Viscount Gislingham. Whoever he was, he would soon be rotting in the Tower, awaiting his execution. And Gray knew he spoke for all his comrades—both living and recently dead—that that day couldn’t come soon enough. Too much blood had been spilled already.
The Disgraceful Lord Gray Page 3