The Earl Most Likely

by Goodger, Jane

  The last time Harriet had seen Alice had been at the tea shop, and it seemed to Harriet that her friend must be showing her pregnancy a bit more.

  Mrs. Randall chuckled. “I expect she’ll be delighted with your visit.” The older woman leaned forward and whispered, “The missus is getting a bit stir crazy. Thank goodness she has her paintings to keep her mind occupied. Why don’t you sit a spell in the parlor and I’ll go tell her you’ve arrived.”

  Harriet settled down on a comfortable sofa and couldn’t help but think how lucky Alice was to have found such a lovely woman as a housekeeper. The Andersons’ housekeeper was a stern woman whom Harriet rarely saw smile. When she and Clara had been children, the sound of their housekeeper’s keys jingling by her side was enough to strike fear in their hearts. The woman constantly reported to their mother that they were up to mischief. True, Clara and she had usually been up to mischief but it was difficult to forgive such tattling when you were ten years old and getting a switch only because you had allowed a toad into the nursery. Harriet couldn’t imagine Mrs. Randall reporting such innocent behavior. Then again, if she did, Alice’s mother would likely laugh and start playing with the toad as well.

  “Thank goodness you’ve come,” Alice said dramatically. “Look at me. As big as a house!”

  Harriet looked up to see her friend walking toward her, slightly rounded belly leading the way. In fact, if one did not know she was carrying a child, it might not be noticeable. She was only five months along. “Not as big as a house,” Harriet said, peering at her belly. “Perhaps an outhouse.” She’d had little experience with pregnant women as most tended to stay out of the public eye when the pregnancy became noticeable.

  Alice laughed good-naturedly. “And the doctor says I still have months and months to go. Months! Henderson is on pins and needles. Every time I sneeze he thinks our son’s going to pop out.”

  Harriet let out laugh. “And you know it’s a boy?”

  “Mrs. Randall swears it. I cannot say I care one way or the other, though a boy this first time would be lovely. So, what is your news?” Alice said, sitting down on a tufted chair.

  Grinning, Harriet said, “How do you know I have news?”

  “Because you have ‘I have news’ written all over your face. Do tell.”

  Harriet bit her lip, wondering if it was the right thing to do, to share her secrets. But, honestly, she would burst if she didn’t.

  “You remember the last time we were all together? In the tea shop. After you’d all left, Lord Berkley caught up with me and offered to walk with me.”

  Alice’s eyes widened. “Really,” she said, that one word fraught with innuendo.

  “Stop. It’s nothing like that at all. He wanted to hire me.”

  Her friend’s eyes went impossibly wider. “He what?”

  “Oh, dear. No, no Alice. My goodness, what a mind you have. He wanted to hire me to help renovate his home. It happens that Lady Greenwich completely modernized the old place and he wanted everything back the way it was. But he couldn’t recall the original, not precisely.”

  Alice smiled. “And of course, you could remember.”

  “Of course.” Harriet paused and worried her hands together. “He’s paying me ten thousand pounds.” This was said in a horrified whisper.

  “He is not.” Alice looked satisfyingly appalled.

  “I assure you, he is.”

  “Of course your parents do not know.”

  Pushing down a smidgeon of unease, Harriet said, “They do not, nor will they. At least not until I’ve packed my bags and found a sweet little cottage somewhere to live out my days.” She grinned. “And that’s not all. I have found evidence that Lady Greenwich was murdered after all. Well, could have been murdered. And Lord Berkley is holding a ball and I shall go and be a princess and we shall find the murderer.” She ran out of breath and stilled, waiting for Alice’s reaction to this latest revelation. It was all quite shocking.

  Alice sat back, stunned. “How can all of this have happened in just a few weeks?” She waggled a finger at her. “And why has it taken you so long to tell me?”

  Harriet scrunched up her face and shook her head. “I couldn’t. Not right away, at any rate. It’s a fortune, Alice. I could be independent. An independent woman. I need never marry or be cast out when my parents die. It’s the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me.”

  “Oh, Harriet, are you that unhappy?”

  “I know you think it’s vulgar for a woman to earn money, but the thought of living out my days with my parents…” She shook her head miserably. “They’re not old, you know. It could be years before…Oh, I’m a horrible person and a worse daughter.”

  “Your parents are challenging. No one would blame you for dreaming of freedom. There are other alternatives, you know.”

  Harriet looked down at her hands. “You mean marriage, of course. I’ve come to realize I shall likely never marry. It’s not as if I’m like Clara, who has men constantly asking for her hand. No one has ever expressed even a little bit of interest in me and I cannot continue to live my life as if they will.” The image of Lord Berkley staring at her hair, staring at her, as if she was beautiful—or at least interesting—came to her mind but she pushed it away. He was an earl and she was the homely daughter of a tin miner. Her mother, for all her airs, was the daughter of a pig farmer. Earls did not marry pig farmers’ granddaughters.

  “For heaven’s sake, Harriet, you’re not an old maid. You’re only twenty-two.”

  “And one day I shall be thirty-two. But at least I shall be in charge of my own life. I know it’s scandalous. I shall have a home, and if Clara doesn’t marry, we can live together very happily. Women do it all the time. Women of my class.” Harriet could not say what made her so cantankerous, but she glared at Alice, almost wishing she would challenge that last. Alice was the granddaughter of a duke, born to privilege, a member of the aristocracy. Though Alice was all that was kind, she could never understand what it was like to be the daughter of upstarts who flaunted their wealth in the most garish and distressing ways.

  Alice furrowed her brow and shook her head. “Wait, did you say princess?”

  Harriet let out a laugh, glad that the more serious part of their discussion was over. “Princess Catalina of Lystengrad, to be precise. Lord Berkley insisted and I think it shall be great fun. I won’t be me, you see, so I shan’t be the shy wallflower Harriet Anderson, but rather the flamboyant Princess Catalina. She has African elephants, you know. An entire menagerie.”

  “And this was Lord Berkley’s idea?”

  Harriet nodded. “It was. I do believe he thinks my memory skills will come in handy, so he insisted I be in attendance. It shall be such fun, don’t you think? Of course, it is tragic that Lady Greenwich was murdered, but you know how I love a mystery.”

  “And gore.”

  She couldn’t help but grin. “And gore. Can you imagine how exciting if we actually solve the murder? We found a diary, you see, and there was a hidden compartment with letters from a gentleman who signed his name ‘C.’ We’re inviting all the C’s who were there that fateful night in the hope of ferreting out a murderer.” Harriet clapped her hands, purely delighted by the idea. Alice looked far less delighted.

  “Won’t that be dangerous? If you are correct and Lady Greenwich was murdered, you are inviting a murderer into Costille House and could very well be putting your life in danger. Having just been in the midst of my own murder mystery, I can tell you it’s far more frightening than exciting.”

  Harriet waved her friend’s concern away. “Oh, posh, Alice, it’s entirely different. Your murderer was running about the countryside eliminating everyone who knew the truth about him. My murderer was in the throes of a great passion for poor Lady Greenwich, who was about to spurn him. I daresay I won’t be in any danger unless he develops a passion for me, whi
ch is highly unlikely given I have never met the man. At any rate, Lord Berkley would never do anything to put himself or anyone else in danger.”

  Alice raised one eyebrow and Harriet blushed slightly. The two women had been friends since childhood and it was difficult hiding anything from one another. “You have come to know Lord Berkley quite well it seems.”

  Harriet resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at Alice. “He is my employer, and as such, I am forced into his company.”

  Alice gave her a level stare. “Princess Catalina,” she said meaningfully. “Who came up with such a lovely name?”

  Harriet could feel her cheeks turn pink. Lord Berkley had given her that moniker right before he’d talked about kissing her. I wonder what you would do if I kissed you right now.

  “Very well, I am fond of the man,” she said in a rush. “Who would not be? He’s quite handsome and is paying me a ridiculous sum of money simply to tell a troupe of men where things go and what color the walls were. But I’m under no illusion that he thinks of me as anything other than an employee.”

  Harriet disliked the look of pity Alice was trying to hide. “It’s only that you do have a history of becoming mashed over men,” she said, then winced as if she’d given her friend a blow. It was true that Harriet had been spoony over Alice’s husband, far more than she’d ever let on. And it had been a bit of a blow when Alice announced that they were in love. But Harriet was older and wiser now. Her crush on Henderson had been years ago. She refused to acknowledge that when Henderson recently returned to St. Ives after a four-year absence, her silly heart had sped up a beat or two.

  Lord Berkley was so far from her reach, it would be pitiable to hope for anything more than a friendship. And if she could not stop her silly heart and her sillier brain from concocting ridiculous scenarios in which he fell madly in love with her, cast off all his beliefs, thwarted society, ignored her common background, her plain looks, and begged her to be his countess, then so be it. What happened in the privacy of her mind and heart was her own business, and she need never let anyone know—particularly Lord Berkley—that she’d spun such fairy tales.

  “Yes, I was spoony over your Mr. Southwell. But that is not going to happen with Lord Berkley.” Alice gave her a skeptical look. “It won’t.” Then Harriet let out a small puff of air and pressed her lips together to stop from smiling. “Much.”

  Alice laughed, her rather large belly jiggling merrily, like a jolly old man’s, and the sight made Harriet laugh along with her until she had tears in her eyes. Then Alice stopped laughing abruptly and laid a hand on her stomach. “I’ve woken him up. Would you like to feel?”

  “You can feel him?” Harriet asked in wonder.

  “Just barely, a little flutter.”

  Harriet went over to her friend and kneeled down in front of her before touching her tummy. Alice took Harriet’s hand and placed it a bit lower, then grinned as Harriet’s eyes widened when she felt the smallest tremor. “Oh,” she said. “That’s marvelous, isn’t it? He really is in there.”

  “I do hope so,” Alice said, laughing again. “Else there’s something terribly wrong with my stomach.”

  Harriet sat back on her heels and sighed. A baby. She’d never given having one much thought. It seemed to be a foreign concept, something that happened to other women and would never happen to her. At this moment, for the first time, she wondered what it would be like to never have a child, to be alone forever. Living in her little cottage alone had been so appealing not a few minutes ago, but for the first time she felt the oddest longing for a baby. Harriet stood and returned to the sofa.

  “What’s wrong, Harriet?”

  She shook her head, finding it difficult to express in words what she was feeling in her heart. “I am just so very happy for you, Alice,” she said, feeling tears prick at her eyes.

  * * * *

  “Reverend Michael, do you believe in hell?”

  Augustus sat in the vicar’s tiny parlor, nearly suffocating from the heat blasting from a fireplace that roared merrily mere feet from where he was sitting. He supposed the old reverend had given him the seat closest to the fire out of courtesy, but all he could think of was that this might be what hell felt like. He hoped this was as close as he ever got to hell, but as he was partially responsible for his wife’s death, he wasn’t certain. Which explained his rare visit to St. Ia’s Church. Rare, meaning he’d never set foot in the place.

  The vicar had been pouring tea, but looked up at Augustus’s question, his faded blue eyes, shadowed by impressive white brows, filled with curiosity. “That is an interesting way to begin a conversation, my lord,” he said, then continued filling the tea cups with steaming liquid.

  “Do you think so?”

  “Are you here for a philosophical discussion or are you in fear for your mortal soul?”

  “The latter.”

  “Ah.” The old man sat back and scratched his bald pate. “Perhaps you should tell me what is on your mind, then.”

  Augustus shifted uneasily in his chair and considered bolting from the room. For years he’d managed to push thoughts—and guilt—about Lenore from his mind, allowing the destruction of Costille House to act as a distraction. Lenore’s death, while tragic, had seemed rather senseless to him. If the silly chit had loathed him that much, why not kill him? Why kill herself? Having her do something so foolish had almost been a comfort to him. How could he have possibly known she would act so rashly? He couldn’t have!

  But now he was faced with the very real possibility that Lenore, despite her vandalism, had resigned herself to making their marriage work. Had, despite all appearances, perhaps even liked him a little. The two of them had been pawns in his father’s destructive game. Nothing makes better allies than a common foe. Put simply, if he had stayed at home, Lenore would not be dead.

  Augustus told the reverend his sordid story, not bothering to mince words or offer excuses. He may not have murdered his wife, but in his mind, he was just as culpable as the man who had. It was not a thought that rested easy with him.

  “That is a tragic story, Lord Berkley,” the reverend said when he was finished. The telling had left Augustus feeling drained and more concerned than ever for his immortal soul. “Your sin was in breaking the vows to your wife you took before God. Your wife’s death is not your sin.”

  The relief that swept over Augustus left him lightheaded and he nearly found himself arguing with the older man. Instead, he said, “You’re certain. And my sins will not land me in hell?”

  “If ignoring one’s wedding vows was a sin that led to an eternity in hell, then I fear that a great many men and women would end up there. Let us say the prayer of absolution, shall we?” He winked. “Just in case.”

  Chapter 6

  The day after her confession to Alice, Harriet approached Costille House with a bit more spring in her step. She’d left her parents and sister all in a twitter about something—she hadn’t any idea what. Prior to leaving for Costille House, she’d found her mother in their dining room making certain their best silver was being properly polished.

  “I’m going for a walk, Mother, and I believe I shall be gone for much of the afternoon.”

  Hedra had looked up and pursed her lips. “Very well. Walks are excellent for the constitution.”

  Harriet had left the room just as her father was coming down the stairs. “Do you know where your mother is?”

  “In the dining room,” she’d said, giving her father a curious glance. He had the same look on his face he was prone to getting when her mother wanted to spend an ungodly amount of money or attend some social event. Her father was not nearly as social as her mother, and indeed nearly became ill at the thought of attending a function. Likely they two were going to discuss the little season and what Clara should wear and how they could garner invitations to some of the more exclusive balls. Or any ball. A b
eautiful girl with no connections and a large dowry only attracted a certain sort of titled gentleman—poor and desperate. To date, no one with a title had been quite poor enough or desperate enough to offer for Clara’s hand. And yet her mother persisted in her fantasy that someday Clara would be Lady Something.

  Neither Clara nor Harriet could convince their mother otherwise, though to be fair, neither had pressed the point too hard. When they even hinted at such a thing, their mother would get a look in her eyes that could freeze lava. Time was running out for Clara, and Harriet had a feeling that any well-positioned gentleman would do, title or not. Even Hedra could not be so blind that she did not see Clara was getting, at least by society’s rules, a bit long in the tooth, and Harriet could sense a growing panic in her mother at the prospect that Clara actually might never marry.

  Clara outwardly appeared completely indifferent to the idea of marrying at all, never mind to a title. She cheerfully went along with her mother’s plans, rarely uttering a word of protest. Harriet suspected Clara knew arguing would do no good and would only take time away from what she truly loved—her garden.

  Harriet walked beneath a canopy of trees, most without their foliage now that it was approaching mid-November, and enjoyed the sound of the leaves beneath her feet. It was a lovely day, unseasonably warm, and the sun shone brightly, bathing the distant tower in its golden light. She had grown to love Costille House, with its small, private nooks and cavernous rooms. Her favorite spot was a whitewashed hall with a Gothic window set deep in the wall that allowed the sun to shine on the old, weathered wood floor. It was easy to imagine the knights and ladies who had tread on the floor before, who had perhaps smiled at the sharp square edges of sun on the wooden boards.

  During her two tours of the place, she’d been part of a group of perhaps twenty tourists, who wandered over the grounds and in the public parts of the castle. Like so many old estates in England, Costille House was a bit like walking through time, depending upon which part of the house one stood in. The private quarters, built late in the last century, were quite modern. But the glory of the estate was the part built in the sixteenth century, those massive towers with the crenellates and narrow arrow slits for archers. Harriet recalled vividly standing in the great room’s massive fireplace and looking up at the dark soot that stained the stone, realizing with a bit of thrill that fires had been burning there for three hundred years. It didn’t take much imagination to conjure a grand gathering with a full stag cooking over the fire.