‘Since the day I arrived, you have made it quite clear what you wanted from life. You wished for money of your own with which you could set up housekeeping. You wished for a sufficient dowry to attract a husband and to choose him for yourself. Most of all, you wished to be taken seriously by the Earl of Comstock.’ He stared at her, willing her to understand what he had no intention of saying in front of the entire family, especially if he was not sure of her response.
‘I am giving you everything you asked for. Just as I promised, when I was Potts, I am giving you the freedom to choose your own future. And I hope, the next time you choose a man, you will do a better job of it than you have this week.’ Then he threw his napkin aside and left the table.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Once he was gone, the table erupted in conversation and demands that she describe the afternoon in detail, with particular attention to the size of the fortune they’d found. Was it truly as large as he’d said?
‘Yes,’ Charity said, staring down at her hands, which were folded tightly in her lap.
‘How amazing,’ Faith said, unable to contain her smile. ‘And he means to share it with us. The man is kindness himself.’
‘But Gregory told me he is going back to America,’ Hope said urgently. ‘It is not that we have not always suspected you were capable of running the estate. But you cannot take his seat in Parliament for him. Is there nothing you can do to persuade him to stay?’
‘No,’ Charity said firmly.
Ask him.
She ignored the perfectly reasonable suggestion in her own head.
‘Nothing at all?’ Faith said with a pointed expression, as if to hint that, though they did not know what the matter could be, they were sure it was her fault and that an apology might solve everything.
‘He is going back to America because his fiancée is there,’ Charity announced. It did not matter that he was marrying an unworthy trollop who was likely to make him miserable. He had made the offer and he was a man of his word.
‘He is engaged?’ Drake said, frowning. ‘This is the first I have heard of it and I made some effort to discover his past.’
‘Her name is Prudence. She is very beautiful,’ Charity said, swallowing a bite of her pudding around the lump in her throat.
‘And when did he tell you of her?’ Faith said, eyes narrowing.
‘From the first,’ Charity answered. ‘He made no secret of her.’ He had lied about his name, but in all other things he had been completely honest with her.
‘He was engaged. And yet he...’ Hope’s voice fell away as if she did not want to accuse him of something that could not be taken back.
‘He did nothing,’ Charity snapped. ‘It was me. It was always me. He did everything in his power to avoid a liaison. But I badgered him until he succumbed.’
There was another profound silence at the table as the family tried to digest that they were not only speaking of something totally inappropriate for mixed company, but that it seemed to involve the youngest and supposedly most naïve member of the family instigating an affair.
At last, Mr Drake spoke. ‘Though you may feel you are to blame, your version of events is not accurate. He concealed his identity from you. If he had been honest, you might have felt differently towards him.’
Of course she would have. She’d have treated him as she had tonight, arguing, snapping and being difficult for no reason. She was as bad as Pepper, who had yapped and nipped, angry at the unfairness of the world and taking it out on the man who had rescued him. And Potts... Comstock...
Miles.
His true name seemed to resonate in her mind like the ringing of a bell. Miles had done nothing to deserve the dog’s hatred. But that had not changed the way he behaved towards it. He had never kicked, never shouted, and gone out of his way to keep the dog safe and well, expecting nothing in return. It was the sort of nobility that one imagined for the peerage, but seldom found in real life.
Mr Leggett was unimpressed. ‘No matter the provocation, he knew what he was doing was wrong. The onus lies with him to do right by you.’ He had been a rake before falling in love with Faith. Apparently, it had taken only two months of marriage to her sister to turn him into a tiresome busybody, eager to spoil the fun for everyone else.
‘We will speak to him,’ Mr Drake added. ‘And remind him that his duty lies with family first.’
‘Prudence is his family, as well. She was his late brother’s wife.’ And she did not need Charity’s help in getting or keeping the man she wanted. She had lied and cheated and won.
‘A widow,’ Mr Leggett said, as if this explained all. Mr Drake nodded.
‘None of this matters,’ Charity snapped, glaring around the table at him. ‘Whatever has happened was between Comstock and myself, and is no business of any of you. You will not speak to him about his supposed obligation to me, nor will you question me about it. Not now. Not ever.’
And then, before she dissolved into the pointless tears that her family was expecting, she fled the room.
* * *
One of the advantages of living at Comstock Manor was that when one wanted to run away, one had plenty of space to do it in. She had been no more than four when they had first arrived and Charity had vague memories of wandering the endlessly long corridors, searching for her mother and weeping.
It had been years since she’d got lost. But tonight, she was tempted to try. At the very least, she could find a place to have a good cry in private, to give vent to her frustrations without having her brothers-in-law demanding satisfaction and her sisters forcing her down the aisle when she simply wanted to be left alone.
Since Comstock might have retired to the Tudor Room or the Earl’s suite, she did not want to be anywhere near the bedrooms. It would be hard enough sleeping down the hall from him with a wing full of chaperons. She could not trust herself to be alone.
Instead, she ran down the centre wing to the back of the house and was halfway to the ballroom before she had realised what she was doing. Then she slowed. The sound of rhythmic pounding came from somewhere ahead, along with the incessant barking of Pepper, the dog. Perhaps the foolish creature had run back into the walls and was stuck. Though she did not relish the idea of navigating the tunnels in the dark, she could not stand the thought of leaving him for the night.
She walked on in the direction she’d been going, as the volume of the sounds increased. Then, as the back staircase widened to reveal the ballroom, she understood. At the end of the great room, the Earl of Comstock was stripped to his shirt sleeves, swinging an enormous hammer at what was left of the wall that blocked off the chapel. Pepper danced around his feet, barking in approval as he dodged out of the way of falling bricks.
Her beautiful Mr Potts, the American man of action. She could not help smiling as she walked down the room to stand at his side. ‘If you think it so important that the job be finished tonight, you can call for servants,’ she said, over the pounding of the hammer.
‘I do not want help,’ he said, scowling. ‘Not from you, or anyone else.’
‘You will not get more than advice from me,’ she said, pulling a delicate gold chair from the stack along one wall and sitting to watch him work. Though she had told herself that she did not want to see him again, the view was hard to resist. His sweat-soaked shirt clung to his back, outlining muscle and sinew as he moved.
‘I would prefer that you not give me that, either,’ he said, leaning on the hammer. ‘You said that taking liberties with your person would have no permanent effect on either of us. What a load of hogwash that turned out to be. I’m in such a state that I’m breaking rocks after dinner so I can sleep at night.’ He pointed an accusing finger at her. ‘After the billiard room, you likely slept like an angel. But I ran through the upper halls like a madman until I was too tired to think about you. The night after that, you caught me
hanging my hair splitter out the window to cool the thing off. And tonight?’ He cocked his thumb at the loose bricks on the wall. ‘I am knocking down walls.’
‘Because of me,’ she repeated.
He looked thoughtful. ‘After I return to America, I suspect I will turn to lumberjacking. I have never tried it, but it looks like damned hard work.’
‘Do they have forests in Pennsylvania?’ she asked.
‘They have forests in Maine,’ he said. ‘I am no longer welcome in Philadelphia.’
‘What about Prudence?’ she said, almost afraid to ask.
‘Once she learned there was not likely to be much money in Earl-ing, she turned around and married a banker.’
‘Then you are free,’ she said softly.
‘If you call this freedom,’ he said, gesturing at the house around him.
‘Now that there is money to run the place, I do,’ she said.
‘Then take it with my blessing,’ he replied, as if it should make any sense at all.
‘You still mean to go to home, though you do not have to?’
‘You are here,’ he said. The words should have hurt her. But there was a longing in the way he said them that made her heart flutter.
‘If my presence bothers you, there is all the rest of England to hide in,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘Not big enough. You could drop a dozen Englands into America and still not fill it up.’
The idea amazed her. ‘I should rather like to see that.’
‘If I am going away so I do not have to see you, your following me there defeats the purpose,’ he said.
‘You are trying to avoid me?’
‘Does it matter? When we were in the chapel, you seemed more concerned about the absence of an earl than you were about losing me. Before that, you wanted me, but not the Earl. You cannot have one without the other, Miss Strickland.’
He had gone back to being proper. But rather than feeling cold and distant, the sound of her surname raised the colour in her cheeks. ‘Now that I have met the Earl of Comstock, I think I could grow quite fond of him,’ she said, smiling. ‘And I will always have a soft spot for my dear Mr Potts, even if that is not his real name.’
‘That is good to know. Because the more time I spent with you, the harder it was to imagine how I could ever be happy with someone else.’ He let the hammer fall and walked towards her. ‘It is rare that I have to exert myself when beating someone at chess. I suspect, once you have studied my play, it will become even harder.’ Then he smiled. ‘And I have never had an opponent with such distracting cleavage.’
‘Was it the chess that decided you?’ she asked eagerly. ‘Because that was when I knew that I loved you.’
‘Probably not,’ he admitted. ‘When I found you up a chimney, I was intrigued. Even more so after the chess game. But when I realised that you came with an entire library...’ He shrugged, helpless. ‘How could I not love a woman with so many books?’
‘They are actually your books,’ she reminded him.
‘The family’s,’ he corrected. ‘I still intend to share them with you. If you want them, that is,’ he added. ‘You are a rich woman now, Charity Strickland. Once word gets out that we are flush, you will have your pick of gentlemen. I will have to fight my way through the throng just to get to your billiard table.’
‘You forget that you are an earl,’ she said, smiling. ‘I will not even bother talking to barons and misters. It would be just a few dukes and marquesses ahead of you in the line.’
‘I did not think you were interested in titles,’ he said. ‘I’d have told you my name much sooner if I had not been sure that being Lord Comstock would count against me.’
‘I suppose some earls are all right,’ she allowed. ‘But in my experience, English lords can be quite full of themselves.’
‘Then it is a good thing I am not really English,’ he said, pulling her into his arms for a kiss.
Epilogue
‘Chilson! Where is my wife?’ As his Countess had frequently pointed out to him, it was not really necessary to shout when calling the servants. There were bell pulls in every room. Even without a summons, they tended to hover close by, ready to help. Unless he took pains to shut them out of the room, there was usually a maid or footman close enough to hear him if he spoke in a normal voice.
But if he stood in the middle of the entry hall and shouted, there was an echo. It gave him an irrational pleasure to be able to hear how large his new home was, without even having to look at it. It was also an excellent position to admire the greenery that had been brought in to decorate the house for the Christmas season. He had insisted that the holly and ivy, mistletoe and hellebore were supplemented by a proper Christmas tree in the main parlour, decorated with fruits and nuts and gingerbread, and lit with candles just as he’d had back home.
‘Lady Comstock is in the library, my lord.’ Chilson arrived as he always did, seemingly out of nowhere and as staid and silent as Miles was loud. After almost ten months, the butler had grown used to his habits. Miles suspected that they amused him, if English butlers were allowed a sense of humour. It also seemed to please him that the woman who had arrived here as the smallest of three orphans was now a countess. He repeated her title whenever he could, as if unable to contain his pride. ‘Lady Comstock is with the painter.’
Miles grinned. ‘Then she will not mind being interrupted.’ He bounded down the hall to find her. Even with the sudden influx of money to the estate, the library was as tatty as ever. The Christmas greenery on the mantelpiece could not seem to hold its leaves and the berries fell from the kissing bough in the doorway almost faster than they could pluck them off.
But it was Charity’s favourite room and his, as well. He could not think of a better place for her to sit for her portrait.
He leaned forward and kissed his wife on the cheek and was rewarded with a hiss of disapproval from the artist.
‘I will not move.’ Charity sighed, then returned a rigid smile and muttered, ‘He wants me to remove my spectacles.’
‘I forbid it,’ Miles said, using his earl’s voice and enjoying the painter’s flinch of subservience.
‘And I would like to remove the tiara,’ she said, making a face.
‘I forbid that, as well,’ he said in a much more affectionate tone. ‘You may have talked me into waiting for the formal portrait. But if this miniature is to be my Christmas present, I reserve the right to choose your costume.’
‘I lack the energy to stand for a full-length painting,’ she reminded him. ‘Perhaps when I am out of my confinement.’
He grinned at the mention of her delicate condition. ‘I will insist on it.’
‘And do not puff yourself up about the chances of getting an heir on the first go,’ she said, still murmuring through an unwavering smile. ‘Though you know much about advising the local farms in the care of their crops and animals, you have done nothing to grow this child.’
‘I was there at the start,’ he said, feeling quite smug about it. ‘And I have been keeping its mother well fed and properly coddled. I have just come from speaking with the workmen. The family chapel will be in fine shape for the christening in spring. The windows are quite lovely, when lit from behind.’
‘So there will be no risk of you stepping in holes in the floor, as you did at our wedding?’ she asked.
‘It is good that we spent the next week in bed,’ he replied. ‘My ankle was not quite right for some time after.’
‘But it was strong enough as you danced last week,’ she reminded him.
‘When the whole family is gathered for a ball, one cannot sit out the dances,’ he said. ‘But we must see about cutting another doorway to the ballroom. The guest wings are looking much better, but it is a bother to have to walk through them to get there.’
‘Next year,’ she sai
d, smiling.
As he dismissed the portrait artist for the day, she pulled off the jewellery she had been wearing, stretching her neck and rolling her shoulders as if the weight of them bothered her. For the first time in several generations, the Countess of Comstock would be wearing real diamonds in her portrait and Miles had requested that she deck herself in as much of the set as she could stand. They did nothing to make her more beautiful or precious to him, but he liked to be reminded of the fun they’d had in searching for them.
He stepped behind her to massage her shoulders, making her sigh in satisfaction. ‘So you have enough energy to visit the village? A wagon has been loaded with baskets for the tenants and I am eager to be done before dark.’
She smiled. ‘I am never too tired to play Lady Bountiful. It must amuse Faith and Hope to no end that I am finally developing manners and living up to my name.’
‘Wise and generous,’ he said with a proud smile, then kissed her ear and whispered, ‘Beautiful, as well.’
By the way her skin coloured at the words, she still did not fully believe him. But she believed in his love. Believing in herself would come, with time.
‘And has your surprise arrived?’ she asked, turning to kiss him.
‘Several barrels of it,’ he assured her. ‘Cook has poured it off into bottles. Every family on the property will have maple syrup for their Christmas dinner. And this is for you.’ He pulled the napkin from his pocket and offered her the treat he was carrying there.
‘Candy?’ she said, taking a brittle string of sugar into her mouth.
‘You cook the syrup down, then pour it out on to the snow to harden,’ he said. ‘Since nature will not cooperate and give me proper winter weather, I had to make do with a bowl of shaved ice. But there is plenty left to have over corn pudding with our dinner.’
She laughed and made a face. ‘Maize mush for a holiday meal. Lord Comstock, you are an odd man. But I love you dearly and will clean my plate if it keeps you from returning home.’
How Not to Marry an Earl Page 21