Rogue's Lady

by Julia Justiss

  He grinned. “Ah, but I don’t live with you day in and day out.”

  “Well, married couples needn’t live in each other’s pockets, either. Indeed, much as I adore Domcaster, with his duties on the land and in town and mine with the house and children, we often go for days seeing each other only at dinner…or at night. Among all the young ladies on the Marriage Mart, surely you can find one who would be that congenial.”

  “Perhaps,” Will temporized, not really putting much credit in that happy prediction. Certainly he had no illusions of tumbling into some great love match, as his cousin had. Save for Lucilla, the one relative who had inexplicably taken into her heart the fractious boy everyone else rebuffed, he knew about as much about familial affection as he did about fathering.

  Indeed, the people to whom he was closest, he thought with a wry grimace, were neither of his own kin nor class. Barrows, now his valet and companion, a scruffy gutter rat he’d rescued when they were both boys. Maud and Andrew Phillips, the elderly caretakers of what was left of his crumbling estate, who’d shown him all he knew of parental affection. A pang of guilt pierced him that he’d not made the trip to Brookwillow to visit them in months.

  Perhaps, if he could tell them he’d acquired the means to restore his ravaged estate and make easy their declining years, he might not be so reluctant to make the trip.

  Even as he told himself it was highly improbable that Lucilla’s scheme could achieve that result, he heard himself say, “Very well, send me a card. I’ll make myself presentable and attend.”

  “Wonderful!” Lucilla rose and gave him another hug. “Come for dinner next week. Domcaster is looking forward to talking with you.” As he walked her to the door she added, “I should have thought the last rich widow you dallied with would have kept a better kitchen. You look half-starved. You don’t need any money for the tailor—”

  “No,” he interrupted, feeling heat flush his cheeks. Since his luck at the tables had been out of late, her comment about his ability to provide himself with food and raiment cut a bit too close for comfort. “My dear, my time with Clorinda was spent dining on delights far more arousing than any chef could devise.”

  She batted his arm. “If you’re trying to put me to the blush, you’re all out. Domcaster says I have no sensibility at all. Very good! I’ll send you the invitation.”

  He bowed. “As you command, my lady.”

  “Stuff!” she said, making a face at him. “No, you needn’t see me to my carriage,” she added as he opened the door and made to walk her out. “My maid Berthe is waiting.” She pointed down the hall to a young woman who stood by the staircase, a liveried footman beside her. “Until next week, then. It is good to see you again, Will,” she added softly before she turned to stroll away.

  “You, too, Lucilla,” he murmured, returning her wave before she disappeared down the stairs.

  Slowly Will reentered his room and sat back down in his chair. Lord Tavener of Brookwillow Manor. Could he really become such a man? Restore his house, revive the land, take up his music again, build a true scholar’s library? Find someone who wished to share that life?

  It seemed too good to be true…but in the last nine years, he’d not found any other way to achieve that dream. He discovered quickly enough after leaving Oxford that gaming, the only source of income open to a gentleman of no resources who wished to remain a gentleman, provided too irregular an income to facilitate the restoration of his birthright, nor after meeting his basic needs was there ever enough left to invest in some capital-generating venture. Nothing less than a substantial influx of cash—the sort that could be provided by the richly dowered bride Lucilla proposed to find him—could accomplish the task.

  Already in poor condition at the time of his father’s death, Brookwillow had been too modest a property and too needful of time and serious investment to set it to rights to induce his uncle and guardian, the Earl of Pennhurst, possessed as he was of so many grander and more extensive lands, to bother with it. The last time Will had visited his estate, rain was dripping through the dining-room roof and birds nested in the upper guest chambers. The Phillipses managed to keep the servant’s quarters and kitchen habitable, but could do little with the rest.

  As for the land, a few tenants still worked small plots around their cottages, but there weren’t nearly enough acres under cultivation to produce a saleable crop. Not that, after spending his youth at boarding schools, he had any idea how to go about transforming the estate into a productive agricultural property.

  In short, his indifferent uncle’s provision of the bare modicum of a gentleman’s upbringing had left Will with few resources and no useable skills. His only innate talent, beyond music, scholarship and a way with cards and horses, seemed to be the ability to beguile bored women into his bed. Though at first that unexpected aptitude had amused him and kept loneliness at bay, of late, even this facility had lost its charm. And no matter how many sessions he battled every contender who dared challenge him at Gentleman Jackson’s, he could no longer box away the sense of emptiness inside.

  While he was pondering the possibilities, Barrows walked back in. “So to what did we owe the honor of Lady Domcaster’s most improper visit?”

  Will smiled. “It seems I am to become a respectable member of the gentry, Barrows. Leave off gambling, shun immoral women, and find a tender bud of an heiress who will embrace me willingly, love me madly and hand over her fortune so I can restore Brookwillow.”

  Picking up the glass Lucilla had left, Barrows drained the last of the wine. “Do you know anything about charming a respectable maid?”

  “About as much as I do about farming. But Lucilla insists I have naught to lose by attempting it. Perhaps ’twill be entertaining to attend some ton parties.”

  “You’ve always derived enjoyment from your cousin’s company,” Barrows pointed out. “And I have perceived of late that you seemed disinclined to accept some of the lures cast at you. Why, Lady Marlow practically—”

  “Not you, too,” Will groaned.

  “If pursuing the improper sort of female has left you dissatisfied, attempting to entice the other sort might at least add a spice of variety to your life.”

  “I expect we shall see. Count how many coins we’ve set aside, won’t you? It seems I must visit the tailor. I’m to make my grand entrance soon at Lady Ormsby’s rout.”

  “At once, m’lord.” Raising the glass to him, Barrows walked out.

  Add a spice of variety to his existence. Yes, entering the ton should do that. After a lifetime of being an outsider, the child not wanted, the student left behind at school during term breaks, he had no expectation that Lucilla’s experiment would do anything more.

  CHAPTER THREE

  TWO WEEKS LATER, as she helped Mrs. Bessborough stack freshly laundered sheets in the linen press, Allegra reflected wryly that the changes the housekeeper had predicted had begun sooner than—and not at all in the manner—that good woman had predicted.

  Captain Lord Lynton had still not arrived, although the household continued to expect him at any moment. Apparently unconcerned with how Lynton House’s new owner might view her actions, however, the day after her husband’s funeral Sapphira summoned a small army of merchants and craftsmen to measure windows, floors, mantels and stairs. She intended, Allegra overheard her telling friends, to refurbish her late spouse’s fusty old town house from attic to cellars.

  And so she had, banishing the Chippendale mahogany furniture and brocaded hangings and replacing them with draperies in the startlingly bright colors she preferred and furnishings in the new Egyptian style.

  When Hobbs, begging her pardon, objected to her wreaking a similar transformation upon the library until the new master determined what he wished to have done with his private domain, she’d sacked him and hired a sharp-faced younger man. She’d gone on to demote Cook to a mere assistant and hire a French chef whose expertise, she informed Mrs. Bessborough, would better please her discriminatin
g guests.

  “I visited Mr. Hobbs during my half-day,” Mrs. Bessborough said, pulling Allegra out of her contemplation. “So sad it was to see him, stripped of his duties, and he a man still in his prime!” She shook her head. “I expect at any moment she will turn me off, as well.”

  “You needn’t fear that,” Allegra assured her. “Whatever her failings, Aunt Sapphira is clever enough to understand that with Stirling still finding his way about his butler’s duties, the household would come to a complete halt without your steadying hand at the reins.”

  The housekeeper sniffed. “Indeed, for who would smooth down Cook’s hackles or calm the maids after one of Monsieur Leveque’s tantrums? She oughta be grateful you’re here, too, speaking that Frenchie’s tongue sweet as a lark and soothing his devil’s temper like you do. I declare, even with the both of us, sometimes ’tis a pure miracle she gets her morning chocolate and her fancy dinners on time!”

  At a jangling sound, Mrs. Bessborough glanced over at the bell case. “The front parlor—that will be the mistress. Now, where is Lizzie?”

  “I’ll go.” With a half-smile, Allegra added, “Aunt Sapphira is probably looking for me anyway.”

  Wondering what chore her aunt would try to foist on her now, Allegra gave the last sheet to the housekeeper and took the stairs to the parlor.

  Allegra suspected Lady Lynton’s speedy sacking of Hobbs and demotion of Cook was intended both to begin restaffing the household with key employees loyal only to her and to deprive Allegra of anyone in authority who remembered her as a valued family member instead of a poor relation kept to do Sapphira’s bidding. Welcoming the struggle as a distraction from her grief, since the new butler’s arrival Allegra had been fighting a small rearguard action to stymie Sapphira’s attempts to relegate her to servant status.

  The day of his arrival, most certainly upon Sapphira’s order, Stirling had stopped her in the hall and commanded her to clean the fireplaces in the guest bedrooms. With a hauteur that would have done Lady Grace proud, Allegra raked the man with a frosty glance and informed him that as Lord Lynton’s cousin, she would determine for herself which tasks, fit for a gentlewoman, she wished to perform. Shrewd enough to realize the imprudence of challenging Allegra—at least not until the new master returned and made her position clear—he’d since ignored her.

  Allegra also refused to Sapphira’s face any chore the widow tried to assign her that did not fall, by Allegra’s definition, within the scope of a lady’s duties. Though her aunt had several times vowed she’d have “that ungrateful foreign brat” thrown into the street, nothing so dire had come to pass. Allegra concluded that Sapphira either did not trust her new butler to lay hands on a self-proclaimed lady—or realized she could not count on any of the footmen to assist Stirling in carrying out an order to eject her husband’s unwanted relation.

  Balked at forcing Allegra into menial duties, Sapphira countered by devising a never-ending succession of the most tedious but genteel chores she could imagine. Wondering whether she would be taxed to answer letters, sort the tangle of embroidery threads in Sapphira’s sewing basket, pour tea or fetch the shawl, fan, sewing scissors or other item Sapphira inexplicably could not locate, particularly when there was an audience to watch Allegra do her bidding, Allegra knocked on the parlor door.

  She entered to find Sapphira entertaining Lady Ingram and Mrs. Barton-Smythe, the two among her friends Allegra most disliked. At least, she thought with relief, it wasn’t any of Sapphira’s sycophant admirers, who, emboldened by her husband’s death, paid her calls nearly every day.

  After glancing at her when she walked in, Sapphira looked away, pointedly ignoring Allegra as she returned her attention to her friends. Allegra set her teeth and waited.

  “You hadn’t heard?” Lady Ingram was saying. “The divine Lord Tavener gave up Clorinda a month ago. Felicia Marlow’s been trying to fix his interest—to no avail. Now, there’s a man who could distract one from one’s grief!”

  “Such presence,” Mrs. Barton-Smythe sighed. “Such eyes! Such physique!”

  “Such technique,” Lady Ingram riposted, setting the women giggling.

  Such a conversation to be having with a new widow, Allegra thought, her small store of patience exhausted. Compared to Rob, she doubted she’d find this Lord Tavener so “divine.”

  Pasting a smile on her face, she dipped a graceful curtsey. “Aunt Sapphira, how might I assist you?”

  Her expression disapproving, Mrs. Barton-Smythe said, “Anyway, I understand Tavener’s finally looking to marry. That should set off some fluttering in the dovecotes of London!”

  “Indeed!” Sapphira replied. Finally deigning to acknowledge Allegra, she turned and waved an imperious hand at her, like a sovereign giving permission for an underling to approach. “I find the parlor chilly, Allegra. Fetch my shawl. And do put an apron over that gown while you help Stirling polish the silver, for if you spoil the dress, I shan’t buy you another!” Turning to her friends, she said with a shake of her head, “So thoughtless—but what can one expect of a chit of her background?”

  Curling her nails into her palms to stifle the first response that sprang to her lips, Allegra laughed lightly. “Poor Aunt Sapphira, grief is making you forgetful! Polishing silver is a footman’s task, as you know quite well. Although,” she added in a thoughtful tone, “forgetfulness is said to be a sign of an aging mind. By the way, dear aunt, should you not take a seat out of the sunlight? ’Tis so injurious to the mature complexion.”

  Sapphira had opened her lips, probably to give Allegra a set-down, but at that last remark, alarm flared in her eyes. Clamping her mouth shut, she jumped up from the sofa and hurried over to the mirror.

  Just then the front door knocker sounded. “Answer that before you get my shawl,” Sapphira ordered as she peered into the glass, searching her reflection.

  Suppressing a chuckle, Allegra exited the room and walked down to the entry hall. Bypassing with a rueful shrug the footman who stood ready to perform that task, she threw open the door.

  Allegra’s breath caught and her hand clutched the doorknob as her gaze locked on the tall officer in scarlet regimentals. “Rob!” she gasped.

  A thin scar made a white arch over the left eyebrow of a face bronzed by a life in the saddle. Standing on the threshold was not the lighthearted Oxford student she remembered, but someone older, rather stern-looking, every inch the seasoned commander who had led men in battle.

  Still, with his hair the color of ripe wheat and his deep blue eyes set off by the brilliant red of his uniform, Rob Lynton was even handsomer than the university student of six years ago. She exhaled in a rush as something fluttered in her chest.

  He was staring at her, as well. “Is that—Allegra? Heavens, how grown up you look! But what are you doing answering the door?”

  “Oh, R-Rob!” she stuttered, his dear face suddenly reminding her so vividly of his father’s that grief razored through her, bringing tears to her eyes.

  Seeing them, his expression softened. Stepping past her to close the door, he murmured, “Ah, Allegra, ’tis a heartache indeed,” and drew her into his arms.

  Savoring the feeling of his closeness, she clung to him, fighting the urge to weep. A sharp “harrumph” made her straighten. She turned to see Stirling watching them, disapproval on his face.

  Eying her askance, he inclined his head to Rob and said icily, “How may I help you, soldier?”

  With one hand resting on her shoulder, Rob looked him up and down. “It’s ‘captain’ to you, sirrah. And who are you? Where is Hobbs?”

  “Rob, this is Stirling, your, ah, new butler,” Allegra interposed.

  Stirling’s face registered shock, followed by an almost comical dismay. “Lord Lynton, f-forgive me!” he stammered, bowing low. “Please allow me to express my own and the staff’s great pleasure at your safe return!”

  Frowning, Rob glanced around the entry at the crocodile-legged table and brightly striped hangings. “Is
this home?”

  “Perhaps I should take you in to meet Sapphira,” Allegra suggested.

  Rob grimaced. “Ah, yes, my lovely new mama. No point postponing that pleasure, I suppose. My batman will be arriving shortly,” he said to Stirling. “Assist him in stowing my kit.” Turning his back on the butler, he grasped Allegra’s arm. “Shall we go?”

  Stirling bowed deeply as they passed. “At once, my lord, Miss Allegra!”

  “You’ve become quite a beauty, little cousin,” Rob said as he walked her up to the parlor. “But what were you doing in the hallway, answering the door in that old gown? Why aren’t you wearing proper mourning?”

  Flushing with pleasure at his first remark, Allegra hesitated before responding to the second. As satisfying as it might be to pour into his ears all her anger and resentment toward Sapphira—and as promising as Rob’s initial comment about his stepmother had been—bitter experience had taught her caution.

  It would be wiser to keep her own counsel until Rob observed for himself the changes that had been wrought in his absence. If he were no longer the fair-minded individual she’d known…if Sapphira managed to win him over in spite of the alterations she’d made, he would neither take kindly nor give much credence to any negative opinions Allegra voiced now about his stepmother.

  And if Sapphira did win him over, Allegra would offer Rob the report about his father’s last days that she’d promised herself to deliver and leave Lynton House as soon as she could arrange it.

  Leave Lynton House and Rob…her childhood hero and the one remaining link to her idyllic past. The thought cut too deeply, so she thrust it away and focused on the query to which she could safely reply. “I was not…very well circumstanced when I arrived,” she said, shame scouring her at his disapproval, “and haven’t yet the funds to purchase mourning gowns.”

  “Then my father’s wife should have ordered some for you,” Rob said flatly.

  “We’ll talk more about it later,” Allegra replied as they arrived at the parlor. Knocking once, she pushed the door open and escorted him in.