Where had he gone?
‘How could you?’ Faith was still trying to scold her, as if it was somehow her fault that he was missing.
‘It was not my idea,’ she replied. ‘I only wished to speak to him before he left. The blame lies with him. If he had done a better job of concealing his theft, then the staff would not have discovered it and assumed the worst. If he had waited where he was until someone came to let him out, we would have nothing to worry about now. And if he has come to some misadventure?’ She shrugged, smiling.
She was sure he had not. He was not an idiot. He would turn up when he was ready. If she had cared to find him, she might have applied herself to the problem, for it was an interesting question. If they did not find him in a day or so, perhaps she would look.
‘You are incorrigible,’ Faith whispered.
‘Quite possibly,’ Charity said, feeling somewhat better. There might be curls in her hair and she was developing a penchant for frilly dresses, but it was a relief to know that three days with Potts had not improved her personality. ‘I am going to the library,’ she said with a smile. ‘Call me when they find the body.’
But when she arrived in her favourite room of the house, it was already occupied. Mr Drake had set two large wooden crates on the biggest of the library tables and was staring at the shelves as if trying to find the best place to start.
‘What are you doing?’ She stood in the doorway, frozen in shock.
Mr Drake looked up at her with the professional smile he had used when solving other people’s problems. ‘Business for Comstock.’
‘What sort of business, precisely?’
‘Nothing you need worry about,’ he said, still smiling.
‘Indulge me,’ she said, her throat tightening in panic.
‘Comstock has decided to sell off part of the collection to make up the deficiency in his finances.’
‘No.’ Where she had felt hot with rage on learning of his lies, this final betrayal left her feeling ice cold inside.
‘He did not tell you?’ Mr Drake’s smile flickered for a moment and his eyes were sympathetic.
She shook her head.
‘If you ask him when he returns, I am sure he will explain it to you,’ he said. ‘However, it is not really my place to do so.’
‘Because you work for him,’ she said. It was as she had feared from the first. He had barely arrived, and yet, Comstock had already begun to turn the family against her.
‘He wants what is best for you, I’m sure.’
‘So did my grandfather,’ she said. Just as she’d always feared, though Miles Strickland was young and handsome, at heart he was no different than the last Earl.
She needed an intercessor. Someone to stop this until she could find a way to protect the books. ‘Hope!’ She turned and ran back to the front hall where her sisters and Mr Leggett were conferring with the servant. ‘Hope!’ She grabbed her sister by the arm, tugging on her sleeve as she had when she was a little girl, unable to control the panic she felt at the changes that had taken place in their lives. ‘Hope.’
Her sister stopped. ‘What do you need, Charity?’
If anyone could reason with Mr Drake on the disposition of the books, it was his wife. ‘Your husband is crating up the library,’ she said. ‘My library,’ she added. ‘Make him stop.’
Mr Drake had followed her back from the library and gave his wife a helpless shrug. ‘I am acting on the instruction of Comstock. We discussed the disposal of certain items.’
Hope looked back at her sister. ‘As we have been trying to tell you for years, Charity, it is not your library. It is Comstock’s. He can do what he wants with it. If you have a problem with that, you must take it up with him.’
‘But to do that, we must find him,’ Faith reminded her. ‘And since you have caused the problem...’
‘For the last time—’
Suddenly, there was a clattering in the wall as if several pounds of stones had been dropped from a great height.
The family turned in every direction. Looking about them for the source of the sound.
In the quiet that followed, they heard a man’s moan.
‘This house is not haunted, is it?’ Mr Leggett said doubtfully.
‘Do not be ridiculous,’ Charity snapped. ‘There are no such things as spirits.’
‘If any place has ghosts, I would expect it would be this one,’ Mr Drake said. ‘It is large enough to hold several.’
Now there came a strange, syncopated scrabbling that grew louder as if it was approaching, though nothing could be seen in either of the halls.
And then there was a bark.
‘It is just Pepper,’ she said with an annoyed sigh. ‘He is chasing something through the walls. Although how he found his way inside them, I have no idea.’
‘The more important question should be how we will get him out again,’ Hope said, alarmed. ‘We cannot let the poor thing die in the woodwork.’
‘Perhaps a hole could be created,’ Mr Drake said. ‘Shall I tell Chilson to find a footman and a stout hammer?’
Hope looked at him in horror. ‘I did not mean that we should pound holes in a building that does not belong to us.’
‘We could bait him out, perhaps,’ her husband countered.
‘Or we can simply show some patience,’ Charity said, exasperated with all of them. ‘He is not stupid, you know. He will come out on his own, given time.’
‘Because of you, we do not have time,’ Faith snapped at her. ‘The Earl is already angry with us. What will he say when he discovers that we have lost his dog?’
‘He will probably shout for joy,’ Charity said, annoyed. ‘Now stop talking as if he is Grandfather and you must all walk on eggs to please him. You have married out of the family. If he is cross with you, you can simply turn and walk out that door, never to see him again.’
They could. But she was in the same state she had always been, utterly dependent on a man who did not respect her and with no rights to plan her own future. Worse yet, she had stripped herself naked for him, both figuratively and literally. She had no idea how to defend against someone who knew her as well as Potts did.
The barking seemed to be getting closer.
Then there was a hollow creaking sound and a shower of paint chips as a panel fell from the wall beside the main stairs and the Earl of Comstock emerged from the opening, hair and coat covered with plaster dust and face crimson with anger.
‘Miss Strickland, I have found your damned chapel.’
For a moment, Charity could do nothing but stare at the man in front of them. He had been handsome enough before, but with his reasonable temperament she had never imagined he would amount to anything better than a lifetime as a clerk or secretary. He had looked like the sort of fellow that one saw adjacent to the men of real power. But as a sword might have been tempered by fire, a few hours trapped in the bowels of the house had turned him into a peer. He was in a towering rage worthy of anything her grandfather had managed when she had disobeyed him.
In the face of his ire, the entire family instinctively resorted to formality and respect, bowing and dropping curtsies, and greeting him as ‘My lord’, although the words coming out of Hope’s mouth sounded more like a prayer.
They needn’t have bothered. By the look in his eyes, Charity was the only one that he was angry with. But she was having none of it. She still stood firmly on the side of the little dog that had rushed out of the wall after him and would have bristled her hackles, had she been given any.
He pointed a cobweb-covered finger in a dire gesture worthy of a spectre, then shouted, ‘You locked me in!’
‘And you sold off my library,’ she shouted back.
He gave a bitter laugh. ‘After all your fine talk about liquidating the estate, you care about a few books? And it is not your
library, it is mine.’
‘So that is the way it’s to be?’ she said, raising her eyebrows and waving her arms. ‘Everything is yours now, is it?’
‘It is,’ he said. ‘Debts and all. And everyone thinks I am supposed to manage you, as well.’
‘Do not think that means you can dictate my life to me,’ she snapped. ‘If you try, I will make you regret the day you left Philadelphia.’
‘I already did regret it,’ he countered. ‘But I had no idea that, given the chance, you would try to kill me as Cyril killed poor Averill.’
‘Kill you?’ she laughed back at him.
‘You might as well have had me thrown in an oubliette. No one could hear me screaming. Had I not found my way out of that room, I might have starved to death.’
‘You missed tea,’ she mocked. ‘But please, tell me the agonies you suffered.’
‘And then you set the dog on me. I was trapped in the walls with him.’
‘The dog found you on his own. And you deserved whatever he did to you,’ she said. ‘You lied to me. From the first breath out of your mouth. You lied.’
‘Not in everything,’ he said. His voice changed, not quite softening, but displaying some new emotion beyond anger.
‘You lied in all the things that matter,’ she snapped back. ‘How can I trust anything you say, Lord Comstock, or do you still expect me to call you Potts?’
‘Miles,’ he corrected.
‘Ha! You did not even give me your Christian name when we...’ she was suddenly conscious of the family about them, watching the argument in rapt fascination ‘...when we spent so much time together.’
‘You were the one who decided I was an auditor,’ he said.
‘Because I did not believe that there was a man on the planet who was so awful that his own dog would hate him,’ she said. ‘I should have trusted Pepper’s opinion of you and stayed far, far away.’
‘He was away from me because I sent him,’ the Earl said. ‘Just as I should have done with you, instead of thinking that I could reside in the same house with you for a single day without being driven to madness.’
‘I drove you mad?’ She laughed. ‘I made an honest mistake and you ran with it.’ Then she turned to glare at the rest of the family. ‘And when you all arrived, you all knew. Didn’t you? You knew and you continued to allow me to be misled.’
‘It was quite funny,’ Faith said, unable to contain her smile. ‘You have always been so smart. And yet you were so wrong in this.’
‘So you took the opportunity to laugh in my face over it,’ she said. ‘I hope you all feel better for it. But you have proved that there is not a single person in this house I can trust.’ She gestured to the dog. ‘Come, Pepper, we are going to our room.’
But the dog, who had been her loyal companion only a week ago, ran to Comstock, wagging his tail.
‘Very well, then, Judas, I will go alone,’ she said, staring down at the dog in disgust. Then she turned and walked, back straight and eyes dry, up the main stairs to her bedroom.
Chapter Twenty
The discreet knock sounded on the Tudor Room door as Miles was attempting to brush the last of the brick dust from his coat.
‘Come,’ he shouted and immediately regretted it. After the very public argument in the hall below, he did not want to see any member of the Strickland family, ever again.
The door opened and Greg Drake stuck his head in, eyes lowered in deference as one might do when facing an angry lion. ‘My lord, I have come to offer the services of my valet to help restore your clothing, after recent events.’
‘I am fine on my own,’ Miles said, with a vigorous scrub that seemed to be working the grime deeper into the wool.
‘And your boots have become scuffed,’ Drake added in a tone normally reserved for a death in the family.
‘They are fine,’ Miles snapped.
‘Are you sure? Because Hagstead has a trick with blacking and champagne that will have the most tired leather shining like a mirror.’
This was Drake’s polite way of telling him that an earl was not supposed to take care of his own basic needs. He was supposed to be combed and curried like a show pony, too delicate to do as much as tie his own neckcloth. He had been getting such hints since the moment he’d stepped off the boat and he was damned tired of them.
But today he put down the brush, pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed in defeat. ‘Very well. He can come before supper. There is no reason for him to waste his effort sooner since I will be going back into the walls.’
‘Going back?’ Drake was clearly baffled. ‘Perhaps with the help of a servant...’
Miles tried to laugh, then stopped. It hurt. ‘No, thank you. I would like to make it back out of the walls in one piece.’
‘About that...’ Drake gave a nervous cough. ‘Chilson is here in the hall and wishes to speak to you.’
‘The more the merrier,’ Miles said with another sigh and a mockingly beneficent wave of his hand. ‘Come in, Chilson. Speak your piece.’
‘My lord.’ The butler came into the room, knees wobbling and with a face as chalky white as Miles’s had been before he’d wiped the dust from it. ‘I take full responsibility for the incident that occurred this morning. Hoover would never have come above stairs, much less do what he did, had I not encouraged him. Nor would he and Biggs have locked you in a bedroom had they not assumed that it was what Miss Charity wanted done.’
‘She did not ask them to?’ It was probably an oversight. Now that she knew his real name, she was more than willing to lock him up and lose the door key.
‘They misunderstood an instruction. Hoover is beside himself.’
‘Better that than that he is beside me,’ Miles said, grimacing.
‘He truly is the gentlest of men.’
Miles rubbed his ribs. ‘Do tell.’
‘And good with the horses.’
‘He should be. He is almost as large as one.’
‘And kind to children, as well. He has six of his own,’ Chilson added with urgency.
‘What do his children have to do with this?’ Miles asked Drake, annoyed. ‘Are they going to hit me, too?’
‘You are new to England and to the peerage. Perhaps you are not aware of the laws and etiquette that accompany your title.’ Drake gave another quiet cough. ‘As an example, should I have a reason to strike you—’ he held up a hand of denial ‘—which I do not, of course. But if I struck you it would be a much more serious matter than brawling with some other gentleman. The punishment would be more severe, as well. And if a man of a lower class should assault you...a servant for example...’ Drake stared at him, waiting for him to understand.
‘He thinks I am going to have him hanged,’ Miles said in disgust. And Chilson had come to plead for mercy and claim the punishment so that there would not be a family of orphans crying in the stables. ‘This entire country is mad.’
‘Perhaps,’ agreed Drake. ‘But we must make the best of it, mustn’t we?’
Not for much longer, if he had any say in his future. But the current problem could not be solved by running away. Miles grabbed Chilson by the arm and pulled the quaking man into the room to a bench by the window. ‘Sit.’
‘Yes, my lord.’
Then he reached into his coat-tail and removed the flask he kept hidden there. He uncorked it and handed it to Chilson. ‘Drink.’
‘My lord?’
Miles tipped it up and poured some courage into the butler. ‘Cherry bounce. A favourite of General Washington. Perhaps, you would have won the war had you some of this.’
It was probably not what he should say to a man who’d threatened his life. But at least the colour was returning to the butler’s face. Chilson sputtered once, then helped himself to another sip. ‘Thank you, Lord Comstock.’
Miles looke
d wistfully at the flask as the last of his American liquor disappeared into the butler. ‘Now there will be no more talk of punishment for Hoover, who was only following orders.’
Chilson gave a relieved nod.
‘I cannot fault any of you for decisions made in ignorance of my name and title, especially when I was the one keeping you in the dark.’
‘Thank you, my lord,’ said the butler, obviously curious but unable to ask him the reason for the deception.
‘And you were acting in the best interests of the family and trying to protect Miss Charity.’ Miles’s throat tightened at the thought of her and the loathing with which she had greeted his true identity. ‘I hope you will continue to do so, even when I am not present.’
‘Of course, my lord,’ the butler said and rose, back as stiff as ever and eyes clear despite the cloud of cherry brandy on his breath.
Miles did not bother to force him down to his chair again. Clearly, it had made the servant uncomfortable to be seated in the presence of a peer and some habits were not worth breaking. ‘Very good, Chilson. Share my thanks with the rest of the staff for their hard work. And my apologies to you and to them for my deception.’
There was the faintest look of horror in Chilson’s eyes at having to receive an apology, since Miles suspected that peers were never sorry for anything. But the butler accepted it with a ‘Thank you, my lord.’
‘And tell them to return my luggage from wherever they have taken it.’
The butler winced again. ‘The duck pond, my lord.’
‘Really?’
‘It was thrown there after the silver was removed. The maids are drying your linen as we speak.’
‘That is most kind of them,’ he said. ‘You may go.’
‘Thank you, my lord.’ At the dismissal, Chilson turned and disappeared in a cloud of subservience.
When Miles turned back, Drake was still in the room. ‘You may go, as well, Drake,’ he said with a mocking wave of dismissal. ‘I am fine here. Everything is fine.’
How Not to Marry an Earl Page 18