The Footman (The Masqueraders Book 1)

by S. M. LaViolette

  “Get us there in time and I’ll pay double.”

  The rickety carriage shot forward before the door had even closed and Iain collapsed into the torn, smelly squabs, gasping for air.

  “The Liberty?”

  His uncle nodded, but kept his face turned toward the dirty window.

  “What is happening, Uncle Lonnie?”

  “I’ve bought you passage to America.”

  “What? But, why?” Iain’s voice was at least two octaves higher. “You’re coming with me?”

  His uncle finally turned to him and the look in his eyes turned Iain’s heart cold. “No, son, I’m not. I’ve only got enough money for one ticket and that has to be yours. They’re calling you a rapist, boy. You’ll hang if you’re caught in England.”

  “A rapist?” Iain repeated, aghast.

  “Aye. They say you forced yourself on her ladyship and Lord Trentham had to pull you off.”

  “That’s a bloody lie!”

  “I know that, boy, but it will be their word against yours. And Lord Trentham isn’t the only one. His lordship and Master Stuart were also there. And then there’s the girl.” His face was a grim mask that looked nothing like the uncle Iain knew and trusted.

  “She’s claiming I raped her?”

  The older man shrugged. “I don’t know exactly what any of them are saying, son. They’ve not come for me. Yet. Besides, they’re hardly likely to confide in a servant.”

  “Do you believe them?” Iain asked, his stomach churning as if he’d just swallowed acid.

  His uncle made an impatient noise. “’Course I don’t, boy, but everyone else will.” He grabbed Iain’s shoulder and shook him. “Listen to me, we’ve not got much time. I’ve purchased you a place on The Liberty, but it will be rough going in steerage, boy.” He reached into the pocket of his old coat and pulled out a small leather purse. “This is all I have left after buying the ticket and bribing that scum at The Steel.” He pushed it into Iain’s hands.

  “But, what about—”

  “Listen to me.” His uncle’s voice was harsher than Iain had ever heard it. “Your life depends on it. You must change your name—first and last. Make up something new—something even I don’t know so I can’t tell them if they were ever to come for me.” His hand flexed until it bit painfully into his shoulder. “You can never, ever come back here, do you understand, Iain? Ever. I paid the guards enough to have you declared dead, but only truly dead men keep secrets.”

  Iain only realized tears were rolling down his face when he tasted salt. He dashed them away with the back of his hand, ashamed at his babyish bawling. He’d not cried even when his Mam had died.

  “Aye, Uncle. I understand.”

  “When you get to Boston you should look for a way to New York or one of the other big American cities, they’ve got several. It’s best you’re well away from where The Liberty is known to dock. I can’t say as anyone would put you and ships together, and I’m hoping if they do, they’ll think you just hopped to France. I bought you passage under the name John Smith, but I daresay you won’t be the only by that name aboard The Liberty.” Lonnie’s eyes flickered to Iain’s head. “I wish we had time to do something about that mop of yours, but it’s looking less red than usual with all the mud. Try to keep it hid or covered if you can, it’s like a bloody calling card.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good lad. Now, when you get to wherever it is you plan to settle, look for a position in service. You’ve a natural talent with horses and I’ve taught you a little. Or you can keep to your finery and serve in a rich man’s house proper like. I hear things are different in America. A man can write his own ticket. You’ve a fair hand, write your own letter of introduction.” He gave Iain a strained smile to go with his attempt at humor. “There are few enough employers who will send all the way back to England to check on you.”

  “What about you, Uncle? Will this put you in danger?”

  The older man gave him one of his crooked smiles and patted him gently on the shoulder with his big, calloused hand. “I’m like a cat, boy. I’ll always land on my feet.”

  An old, familiar anger reared inside him. “Why must it always be us who must take care how and where we land, Uncle? How come they always get away with trampling the likes of us?”

  Uncle Lonnie shook his head and took him by the shoulder. “You need to forget that fight, Iain. It’s sad but true, son, ‘might makes right’.” He squeezed his shoulder so hard Iain winced. “Your Mam told me what you did to The MacLeod when the man turfed you off his land. You’re lucky he let you off with a whipping, boy. You need to keep a tighter hold on that temper of yours.”

  Iain was surprised his uncle had known about Iain’s bad behavior all this time and never said anything. Iain wasn’t proud of what he’d done to The MacLeod. At the time, he’d told himself the man who’d fathered him owed him the half-dozen prime sheep he’d stolen and driven to market. And then The MacLeod himself caught him and gave him the whipping of his life.

  Suddenly the driver’s hatch sprang open.

  “Ye’d better be ready to run,” he shouted through the opening. “They’re pulling up the gangplank.”

  Uncle Lonnie flung open the cab door before the vehicle even came to a halt. He turned to Iain, his blue eyes beneath water. “Make haste boy, you’ve no time.”

  Iain tightened his hand around the small purse of money and lifted it. “Thank you for this, Uncle. Thank you for everything.”

  “Run, boy!” His uncle’s voice broke and he pushed Iain out of the hackney so hard he almost fell.

  “I won’t forget you, Uncle Lonnie.”

  “Run!”

  Iain ran.

  Chapter Eight

  Village of Trentham

  1817

  Elinor mounted the ancient stone stairs to the house where she’d lived for almost a decade. Lights blazed from every window, countless candles glinting behind thousands of tiny leaded panes of glass. Charles had outdone himself. Or, rather, his housekeeper and steward had.

  “Elinor, my dear, how lovely you could come,” the earl greeted her before she’d even taken two steps into the foyer. Elinor looked into his shallow blue eyes and it was all she could do not to turn around and leave. Why had she come?

  To see him, of course.

  She blinked away the thought and the face that went with it and looked at her repulsive host instead.

  “Good evening, Charles. I commend you, Blackfriars looks magnificent.” It would irk him that she would not compliment him, but instead his house.

  “As do you, my dear,” he said, ruining the compliment with a smirk.

  Beth had done her very best tonight, but the person inside the pretty gown her maid forced her to purchase was still Elinor. The fabric—a pale peach silk—flattered her more than anything she’d worn since Edward’s death. Even before her husband died, she’d worn nothing but grays and blacks. When Edward had finally noticed her somber garments—years after she’d taken to wearing them—he’d laughingly accused her of mourning a series of unsuccessful pregnancies.

  By that time the comment had surprised, rather than hurt, Elinor. Who would have guessed Edward possessed such insight?

  And who knew why she was suddenly interested in wearing colorful clothing again?

  She handed Charles’s butler her gauzy peach wrap. “You are looking well, Beacon.”

  The normally somber man’s face creased into a pleased smile. “And may I be so bold as to say the same for you, my lady?”

  “Yes, yes, very good, Beacon,” Charles muttered, waving away the servant and taking her arm, guiding her past the spectacular flagstone staircase that led to the far smaller second floor. Elinor shivered, grateful she would not have to go up those stairs. To where her chambers had been.

  “I have a surprise for you tonight, dear Elinor.”

  The small hairs at the back of her neck rose. “Oh?”

  He cast her a gleeful look before flinging
open one of the huge doors to the refectory, an enormous room that would be used both for dining and for the ball. The room was over one hundred and forty feet long, its ceiling supported by vast hammer beams. It had been designed on an east-west axis and a spectacular rose window complete with stone tracery faced east. Standing in the room in the morning when the sun shone through it was almost a religious experience.

  But tonight her attention wasn’t on the glorious window.

  Viscount Yarmouth stood just inside the room, holding a glass of something ruby-colored in his white, tapered fingers.

  “Hello, Elinor.”

  Elinor felt as though she’d been kicked in the chest by a draught horse. Naturally her excellent manners took charge of her brain and told her body to ignore the painful sensation and avoid making a scene.

  “Father. What a surprise.”

  Her father’s faded blue eyes darted from Charles to her, as if he was uncertain what to say next and was searching for cues.

  A new voice came from behind Elinor and spared the viscount the effort.

  “Lady Trentham, how delightful to see you again.”

  Elinor turned from the frying pan to face the fire.

  The sight that met her eyes was every bit as glorious as the rose window. Who would have believed Stephen Worth could look more magnificent than he did in buckskins and tweeds? But of course he did. The stark black and white of his evening attire was the perfect foil for his flamboyant coloring and tall, muscular body. His black coat made him appear even broader than usual and his hair was like a live flame beneath the myriad candles.

  He released his dimples in a smile so radiant she could almost believe he really was delighted to see her.

  She dipped a slight curtsey. “Good evening, Mr. Worth.”

  His eyes appeared unusually green as they swept from Elinor to Charles and then lingered on her father. His lips curved in a way that made the skin on her thighs sensitive and . . . aware. Elinor tried to hide the alarming sensations with a sip of wine.

  “I have just had the pleasure of meeting your father, Lady Trentham. I was both surprised and pleased to learn we share several interests.”

  Lord Yarmouth’s pale, papery skin—so much in contrast to the younger man’s vibrant glow—darkened as three sets of eyes turned his way. Elinor couldn’t help wondering if her father, notorious for his ridged views on class, was quite pleased to acknowledge an acquaintance with a man of banking.

  “And what are those, Mr. Worth?” Elinor asked when it appeared nobody else would speak.

  “We are both avid collectors of miniatures. Unbeknownst to either of us we have crossed paths several times in recent years.” The smile he bestowed on Lord Yarmouth seemed benevolent, but Elinor had learned several things about the charming Mr. Worth over the past few weeks. One of them was that his pleasant words frequently hid barbs.

  Worth himself had seen to her education on the subject of Stephen Worth by popping up in the most unexpected of places.

  Indeed, after the first two coincidental meetings: outside of Doctor Venable’s surgery only four days after their tête-à-tête during the storm and then a chance encounter the day after that in the tiny village shop—where Mr. Worth appeared to be purchasing shoe blacking, of all things—Elinor had begun to expect him to pop up whenever she left the confines of the Dower House.

  He was always charming and flattering—respectfully so, of course—but beneath his warm smiles lay a certain . . . watchfulness. Elinor had decided that was simply his predatory business nature showing through his gorgeous, polished veneer.

  Lord Yarmouth gave Stephen Worth a guarded smile. “Mr. Worth acquired several specimens I attempted to procure.” Her father might be smiling, but Elinor recognized the tension in his eyes. The viscount had not appreciated losing to a man he would consider no better than an upstart cit, albeit an obscenely wealthy one.

  Worth took a sip from his glass and rocked almost imperceptibly from the balls of his feet to his heels, very much like a young boy whose body could not contain its joy.

  “I daresay I went beyond what I should have in the case of the Cooper,” Worth said, his relaxed, confident smile saying otherwise.

  In that instant, his expression was as easy to read as a diagram in her medical text: Worth was glad to have outspent her father. He was more pleased by that than the actual acquisition of the miniature in question.

  Elinor sipped her wine as that realization sank in. So, she now knew the what, but she still didn’t know the why. Why did he wish to bait Lord Yarmouth by snatching a miniature from him? Why did he want to bait Lord Yarmouth at all?

  “I hope all this spending hasn’t put you under the hatches, old chap,” Charles said, giving a bark of laughter, as though the notion of a spendthrift banker was too amusing to be borne.

  Lord Yarmouth’s lips tightened at the earl’s gauche reference to money but Worth chuckled along with the Earl of Trentham. His green eyes, Elinor noticed, glinted behind heavy lids.

  ∞∞∞

  Stephen could feel her presence all along his right side, even when he was turned away and speaking to the woman on his left, a Miss Susan Something-or-Other, who was far prettier than the countess but somehow far less compelling. She would also be a far easier conquest. Stephen recognized the pretty blonde’s rapacious look: she wanted his money. She was like a bitch in heat—but for his wealth, rather than his person.

  Stephen watched Lady Trentham’s hands as he listened to the younger woman babble about some ball she’d attended in London. The widow was buttering a slice of bread, her small hands unexpectedly broad across the backs. They looked like the hands of a woman who worked rather than those belonging to a countess. Something about the competent way those hands manipulated the cutlery caused a surge of heat through his body, as if his nerve endings had imaginations of their own and were contemplating her manipulating other things just as deftly.

  Stephen almost laughed out loud. He hadn’t bedded a woman in so long that even a pair of work-worn hands made his cock hard. He wrenched his mind away from his groin and thought about what he’d learned about the owner of those competent hands in the past few weeks.

  “She meets the village doctor twice every week and has done for over three years,” Fielding reported a few days after he’d arrived at Blackfriars.

  Even though Stephen knew about the meetings from the Earl of Trentham, hearing the words spoken out loud made the muscles of his stomach tighten. Were they lovers? He looked away from Fielding’s knowing eyes and down at the ledger that lay open on his desk.

  “An affair?” he asked coolly.

  “He’s teaching her medicine.”

  Stephen’s head snapped up. “What?”

  Fielding nodded, an honest-to-God smile lighting up his savage face. “Aye, she’s learning to be a doctor. At least that’s what the bird who works for Lady Trentham told me.”

  Stephen did not bother to keep the disbelief from his voice. “Beth told you that?”

  “No, not that one. A young lass who comes from the village five days a week to do the heavy work.” He snorted. “The older one isn’t fond of me. She gave me the boot when she saw me the first time I visited the Dower House.”

  Stephen groaned. “When she saw you doing what, John? Please tell me you weren’t trying to bed Lady Trentham’s servant under her own roof?”

  “Why would I do that when there’s a perfectly comfortable hay loft? Anyhow,” he continued without waiting for Stephen’s response. “She takes lessons with the good doctor and then spends an unhealthy amount of time shut up in her room with books, according to the young maid.”

  Learning medicine?

  Stephen watched her out of the corner of his eyes as she picked up a spoon and began raising dainty amounts of soup to her lips. Was that why her hands were so careworn? Medicine?

  “I’m so excited to finally attend a dance at Blackfriars,” the beauty on his other side chirped, pulling Stephen’s attention
away from the intriguing widow. “The last time there was a ball at Blackfriars was when Lady Trentham still lived here.” She simpered up at Stephen before shooting a rather vicious look at said lady. “Of course I was still an infant then. Do you care for balls, Mr. Worth?”

  Only my own. He smiled at the thought and turned it on the pretty blonde. “I do indeed. In fact, you could say I have something of a mania for balls.”

  A slight choking sound on his right side gave Stephen the excuse he needed. “Would you excuse me a moment?” he asked and then turned to his reason for being here.

  “Was that a cough or were you laughing at me, my lady?” Stephen asked her profile. Her sturdy chin and regal nose were nicely offset by eyebrows that turned up at the ends with a wicked little flick. Her mouth was small but mobile, and currently pulled up ever so slightly at the corner.

  She faced him and her fine brows took flight. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Worth, are you speaking to me?”

  He grinned at her haughty tone. “Yes, I was. I was reminding you that I laid claim to at least one waltz when last we spoke.”

  Her pale cheeks tinted a delicate rose color. “I recall you asking me to reserve a waltz for you and I also recall I never answered.”

  “Ah, but that was because we were interrupted by that charming child—do refresh my memory, what was his name?”

  Her lips twitched and her hand rose to her mouth, as it did whenever she laughed or smiled. What was she hiding? A blackened tooth or—horrors— a missing tooth?

  “His name is Reginald Beasley. The poor child must have been eating the berries that grow in the hedge. They are not poisonous, thankfully, but they can be rather . . . unsettling.”

  “I noticed,” Stephen said wryly.

  She laughed outright and then caught her lower lip with her teeth. “I must apologize for laughing at you that day—and again, now. It was most unkind of me, both toward you and poor Reggie. But really,” for the first time, he saw her gray eyes sparkle like they had on that long-ago night, “you should have seen your face, Mr. Worth.”