“I have met this man. He was Lord Lindsey, the father of the current earl.” The elderly man had passed away while his son and nephew were overseas, following his long-dead countess. In fact, Jenny couldn’t remember a time when Lady Lindsey had been alive.
Then she patted the boy’s shoulder. “And you look like him as well, Peter, because he is your grandfather.”
“And mine?” asked Alice.
Jenny turned to say yes just as a young woman entered carrying a gleaming silver tray, followed by Mr. Binkley, who paused at seeing them in front of the six-foot painting.
“When you are finished with your refreshment,” he said, his tone brooking no argument, “please ring the bell.” He pointed to a bronze statue of a lion on its hind legs appearing to be simple figurine set upon the mantle. “Press the front legs, and I’ll escort you back to the study.”
She would have preferred poking around and perhaps finding the great room of her childhood memories, but apparently, that was not to be.
“Of course,” Jenny said, and settled into chairs with the children. Along with a teapot, cups, and saucers, a pile of scones sat jauntily on a platter with two bowls, one with clotted cream and one with raspberry jam.
Alice squealed in delight, and Jenny quickly lost the will to make them name everything in French since she doubted she could tell if they were correct anyway.
*
With her head resting on the back of the sofa, Jenny found she could not move. Her eyes were firmly closed.
“Ha,” Maggie’s voice crowed, “I knew it. Those children exhausted you.”
“Yes,” Jenny mumbled, not raising her head. “They did.”
Then Eleanor’s sweet voice permeated her tired mind. “Jen, look at my new hat.”
With effort, Jenny slid open her eyes and peered across the room at her sisters. Maggie was grinning, and Eleanor, also smiling, had on a beautiful straw hat with both feathers and ribbons artfully arranged.
“It looks expensive,” Jenny said.
Both girls deflated immediately at her tone.
“But lovely,” Jenny added quickly. “Perfect for the country.”
Eleanor’s broad smile returned. “Isn’t it though? The brim will keep the sun out of my eyes and off my nose.”
“Perfect,” Jenny repeated and closed her eyes once again. She’d promised Mr. Allen at the inn that she would have his accounts balanced by the next morning, or at least their servant, Henry, had made such a promise. She would have to rally soon and make good on their manservant’s word.
Feeling someone sit beside her, she knew it was Maggie, for she’d heard Eleanor scamper off at her usual prancing pace.
“They are good children,” Maggie began.
“Yes. We read Perrault and then ventured out to find sustenance.”
Maggie gasped. “You never! You left the blue room?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not supposed to.”
“As I found out.”
“Who discovered you?” Maggie asked, a measure of excitement in her voice.
“Mr. Binkley was his name.”
“The admiral!”
Jenny startled. “Is he?”
“No.” Maggie laughed. “But I think of him as such.”
“I can see why. He was quite forceful.”
“He marched you back to the parlor?”
“No, we had a delightful afternoon tea service in the dining room.”
Maggie gasped. “You never!”
“Stop saying that.”
“Saying what?” her mother’s voice accompanied her into the room. “And why are you sleeping at this hour?”
“I am not sleeping, Mummy, merely resting. I had a long few hours at the manor.”
Her mother sat down on the other side of her and her familiar lavender scent drifted to Jenny’s nose, offering comfort.
“Did you remember it? Belton Manor, I mean?”
“Yes, I did, though I didn’t get to revisit the great room.”
“Pity,” her mother mused. “One of the loveliest rooms in all of England, I’d warrant. Always good of them to open it to the children at Christmastime.”
“I saw a portrait of the old earl.”
Her mother clucked her tongue. “Nice man. He’d be horrified to hear about the fate of his nephew, I’m sure, not to mention his only son.”
“I believe I heard him today.”
Maggie gasped again.
“What can you mean by that?” her mother wanted to know.
“She means she heard Lord Despair moaning and groaning.”
Jenny lifted her head at last and shot her sister a glance but didn’t bother to correct her.
Then she turned to her mother. “The children became a bit boisterous when we went to take our tea. All at once, I heard a man screaming. It was bloodcurdling, I must say.” Jenny recalled what had happened next. “Then he began to shout the word no. A bit weakly at first, but then much more firmly. Over and over, as if he were being tormented.”
It had been a heartbreaking sound.
“And I have to go back there tomorrow,” Maggie protested.
“Does she?” their mother asked Jenny as if she were head of the household.
“Yes, she most certainly does.” She looked at Maggie. “Have you heard similar?”
Maggie sighed. “I have, though rarely. Maybe not quite as long an episode as you mention. Just a shout or a groan. And at times, he thumps around, and those noises bother the children. The admiral—”
“Who?” their mother asked.
“The butler,” Jenny clarified.
“Mr. Binkley sometimes checks on us after the earl has an incident.” Maggie stood suddenly. “I’m going to write to Ada. I sorely miss her.”
Jenny was sorry that her sister had to leave all her friends behind. Clearly, the shortcomings of her new life were making her think about her old one. “Why don’t you invite her to come stay with us when the season has finished?”
Maggie shot her a look of utter horror.
“Oh no, I couldn’t.” She put her hands to her cheeks. “Imagine her seeing me festering in the country after she has been waltzing in London? Good Lord, what if she found out I was receiving payment for my time with the Devere children?”
“That would not do,” their mother agreed.
Jenny thought them both overly sensitive. “I understand that missing the Season is an unfortunate thing, but you should feel a sense of pride in—”
“Don’t you dare say ‘in your work,’ or I shall never go back to the manor. I feel nothing but humiliation.” With that, Maggie stormed from the room.
“Oh, dear,” their mother murmured.
“Indeed,” Jenny agreed.
*
“His Lordship, the Earl of Lindsey, wishes you to conduct a thorough audit of the prior five years’ ledgers. Said volumes will be delivered to your office by …”
Jenny read the meat of the missive over and then again. It consisted of a single paragraph addressed to Mr. G. Cavendish, the name she’d called herself since beginning the lucrative charade of bookkeeper, using her mother’s maiden name.
Clara, the housekeeper, who’d served them since Jenny was a child, stood before the writing desk, waiting until Jenny reached the end of the letter that had been delivered to their door. It was signed “E. Binkley, representing His Lordship Simon Devere, Earl of Lindsey.”
“Gracious!” she exclaimed. The admiral.
“There is a lad waiting on an answer,” Clara reminded her.
Jenny stared a moment at Clara. Her first thought was that she would be found out if she was not extremely careful. Her second thought was that she should charge more to this particular client. Her third thought was that she probably ought to turn down this entreaty altogether.
Still, she picked up her fountain pen and snatched up a plain piece of writing paper, one without the recognizable Blackwood “B” surrounded by holly and underscored with
the very proper motto, Per vias rectas. By straight ways, indeed!
What would her ancestors think of her decidedly not straight path? She didn’t care to ponder that question.
With quick strokes, Jenny responded that she would be glad to assist the earl and would receive his ledgers anon. She signed it with what was becoming a familiarly fake signature.
Waving the paper back and forth for a few moments, she then folded it and handed it to Clara, who offered her a wry smile and hurried from the room.
What an interesting turn of events. Jenny would be privy to the inner workings of Belton Park, including the manor and Jonling Hall, as well as the surrounding lands and holdings. Perhaps she would even find out who had purchased the hall, which remained empty after Lady Devere and her children vacated it over a year earlier. For some reason, they’d been unable to maintain the residence.
A mere forty-eight hours later, Jenny sat at her desk with the Devere ledgers spread before her and cracked open the latest one, deciding to take stock of the current state of things before delving into the past.
Another three hours later, as well as a pot of tea and four lemon biscuits, she knew quite a bit. Maude Devere had not had the disposable income to pay for the upkeep of Jonling Hall, nor to pay her servants. She’d been forced to let them all go and to sell her home to someone who’d gone through a London estate agent and was, unfortunately, unnamed in the proceedings. Obviously, it was someone quite well-heeled.
Jenny’s family had avoided the same fate, though they’d had to part with their darling townhouse on Hanover Square. If she did manage to save enough to give either sister a proper Season the following January, where would they reside in London?
Pushing that worrisome thought out of her head, she plunged ahead. Though the old earl’s holdings had been quite prosperous in the past, they had yielded dwindling profits of late. The downturn had already begun at the earliest ledger, five years past, as someone had noted a quarter decrease in the year’s end total; the next year, the profits were down again. Then, about the time the young earl and his cousin went away, the accounting became spotty, and some earnings were not recorded at all. The handwriting changed, too.
Jenny wondered if Simon Devere had been the one keeping the ledgers for his father until he’d left for Burma. Of one thing she was certain, some of the incomes were going missing from the trade and manufacturing accounts. Perhaps it was simply from a misunderstanding rather than because of any nefarious goings-on.
Over the next few days, Jenny made notes of her findings, outlined the discrepancies she was encountering, and wrapped the whole package up neatly for Henry to return to Mr. Binkley by early evening on the third day. Jenny doubted the earl was in any state to peruse them, but his butler, and hopefully an estate overseer, would have to understand that she couldn’t do a proper accounting of the estate with such gaps in the records.
Lastly, she created her bill for the hours worked, tucked it into an envelope, and affixed that to the package via a sturdy piece of string.
Time to reward herself with a glass of Spanish wine before dinner. After telling Clara she would have her aperitif in their small and rather haphazardly tended garden, Jenny made her way onto the back paved terrace, overlooking boxwoods, barberry shrubs, and roses. Taking a seat at the wrought-iron table, she could see the stables and the small paddock and heard the whinnying of their horses.
Accepting the wine from Clara with a nod of gratitude, Jenny admitted to herself she’d nearly forgotten the other pressing issue on her plate. Thunder, as Eleanor had named one of their horses, had taken on the demeanor of its name and become a bad-tempered gelding. They’d sold off another pair of fine ponies in London and brought with them only Thunder, and Lucy, a tame mare. Here at their country home, there already resided an old carriage horse, a Cleveland Bay, nameless as far as she knew, who’d been in the family since before she or either of her sisters were born.
Jenny sighed. Horseflesh was expensive to maintain, especially when one had expensive hats to buy one’s sisters and a Season to save for. However, no one would buy Thunder in his current state, and none of them could bear to part with Lucy or the old Bay.
At present, all three horses were grazing in the paddock. One would think the two older ones would willingly stay away from Thunder, but Lucy quite often approached her stablemate, resulting in mayhem. The problem had started with a slip in a pesky spring puddle when they were unwillingly fleeing London for the country. The roads were riddled with both shallow and deep crevasses filled with rainwater. Thunder had misstepped in a rut disguised by muddy water and twisted his right front leg.
None of the Blackwood women had any special skillfulness with horses, though they could all ride, and Eleanor loved all creatures almost more than she liked people. Clara’s son, their young stable boy George, had tended the leg as best he could on the advice of a neighbor, using a poultice and a tight bandage around the cannon. Even though its leg had healed, in the meanwhile, the horse had developed a slight limp.
To make matters worse, Thunder had stuck his head in a raspberry bush, probably seeking sweet berries, and, by the way he blinked and shied on that side, had most likely scratched his left eye. Between one thing and the other, he was anxious and skittish.
Jenny sighed again and took a healthy draught of her wine.
“What are you doing?” her mother asked, taking the empty chair beside her.
“Relaxing. And thinking that something will have to be done about Thunder, but for the life of me, I don’t know what.”
Clara brought out another glass of wine for the mistress of the house, and Jenny lifted hers to tap glasses with her mother.
“Let George worry about the horses,” Ann Blackwood said. “You are doing an excellent job with everything else. Have I told you that?”
She smiled at her mother. “Yes, you have.”
“I know you would be established in your own home by now if not for your father’s death. Are you terribly disappointed?”
Jenny shook her head. “In all honesty, no. I would have gone to an unfamiliar house and lived amongst strangers.”
“You would have had a husband,” her mother pointed out.
“Another stranger,” Jenny said. “Did you love Father when you married him?”
Anne sat back and stared at the fields beyond the paddock, and then she sipped her wine. “I did.”
“Would you have married him if you didn’t?”
“Circumstances were different. Frankly, I wouldn’t have been allowed. As it was, we were nearly forbidden by my father. If I hadn’t loved your father and pressed his case, his suit would have been dismissed.”
“Because Father was a Scot?”
“Yes, but I begged my mother to help convince my father. If your father hadn’t been a baron, she wouldn’t have helped me either, but that small nod to nobility gave him the sheen of acceptance. That and the fact that he’d gone to school on this side of the border.”
Jenny considered it for a moment. Her parents had always seemed happy.
“I’m sorry that you lost your love, Mummy. Quite apart from the fact that he was my father, I liked him as a person.”
Her mother reached over and touched Jenny’s arm. “Thank you.”
“I am glad you don’t cry anymore. Maggie says that Lady Devere is still crying, and, think on it, her husband has been dead for years even though she didn’t know it.”
“Maybe she cries for other reasons,” Anne suggested. “In any case, I had a good marriage and I have you three girls. I can’t complain.”
Jenny smiled at her mother’s practicality. She had inherited it in full. “I didn’t feel for the viscount what you felt for Father. How terrible if I had actually had a deep interest in Alder, and he’d thrown me over the way he did.”
“I was lucky not to have to rely on the barbaric Season of the haut ton,” Anne admitted. They both laughed at her characterization of the round of London events to whi
ch many young girls looked forward, while equally as many faced it with dread.
“Your father’s family were neighbors to my parents’ home in Carlisle, and we were quite used to Scots anyway, since we lived so far north.”
But Jenny was distracted by talk of the Season, still going strong in London for another few weeks at least.
“Barbaric or not, Mummy, we must find a way to get Maggie to attend next year. It is unlikely she’ll find a suitable husband here.”
“What about the new earl?” Anne suggested. “He’s a bit old for her, but she might find him attractive. What’s more, she’s there every day. Perhaps—”
“He’s confined like a hermit and sounds like a wounded animal.”
Her mother pursed her lips. “I suppose then not suitable for our Mags.”
“No,” Jenny murmured, “I suppose not. There are always the matrimonial adverts, I suppose. If Maggie is willing, we can—”
A shriek brought Jenny to her feet.
Chapter Three
Eleanor came running in, somehow smiling while still shrieking.
“You’ll never guess, never ever,” Jenny’s youngest sister declared, then screamed in excitement once again.
“Cease that infernal noise at once,” their mother said, as Jenny returned to her seat, wanting to throttle her youngest sister for giving them both palpitations. “No one will guess anything until you sit down and speak properly. Dear, oh, dear, I don’t know where you got those manners or how we shall ever find you a husband. Maggie will be easy in comparison. She has only a somewhat tart tongue, whereas you—”
“Sorry, Mummy,” Eleanor interrupted. “But it is so very wonderful, I could not contain myself.”
“What is it?” Jenny asked irritably, still feeling her heart thumping uncomfortably and being reminded of the earl’s awful shouting.
“I’ve had a letter from Maisie. She and Uncle Neddy are coming to stay with us.”
Jenny and her mother exchanged a quick glance. She thought she saw alarm mirrored in Anne’s eyes.
Beastly Lords Collection Page 3