“I won’t leave this room until we have discussed what is to be done. Perhaps you have already decided what you intend to do, which wouldn’t surprise me! But I have a right to know, and a right to be consulted. That you sit there half dressed in the middle of the day, I couldn’t care less. What does it matter in the greater scheme of things? I’d not have cared had I interrupted you soaking in your bath! Perhaps being in your tub would’ve been more convenient, because you’d be a captive audience and forced to entertain my conversation!” He took a breath, put up a hand and then let it drop heavily. “This isn’t what I envisioned for a reunion with you, and with—with Jane. And I will call her Jane in private with you, not Lady Salt, because she is a dear friend and wife of my closest cousin.”
When the Earl put up his brows but said nothing, he added with a sigh of exasperation,
“Oh, for God’s sake, Salt! I grant our last meeting wasn’t my finest hour, but a lot of apples have fallen from the tree since then, so the least you could do is not sit there wooden-faced and pinched-nosed, as if the sanctity of your book room has been breached by a sweep! And I won’t apologize for my lack of servility and I won’t bow down to the Head of the Family. I had a damned uncomfortable journey to get home as swiftly as possible, without so much as a leave-taking, so no doubt I’ve burned my bridges in ’Petersburg. But that doesn’t matter. None of it does. If it costs me my position in the Foreign Department, if it means our friendship is beyond repair, all for the greater good, then so be it. I mean to have no regrets. But there is one thing I won’t do this very minute and that’s leave this room until I have told you what I have arranged for my sis—”
“Miller was charged with telling you to wait upon Lady Reanay for an hour and then return here,” Salt interrupted evenly, folding his arms across his broad chest and leaning back in his chair to regard Sir Antony under hooded lids. “If that is how you conducted diplomacy in ’Petersburg, by impassioned brow-beating, I’m surprised you are so well-regarded. But perhaps the Russians prefer a more direct approach; or your inability—some would dare say recklessness—to take no for an answer. It is all I can think of why you are being honored—”
“Honored?” Sir Antony frowned and took a step closer, his fingers, which had been tight about the stem of his quizzing glass, opening. He allowed himself to stand easy. The word honored completely threw him off his line of argument, as Salt knew it would.
“They mustn’t mind their conversations being interrupted either,” the Earl muttered, adding with the twitch of a smile as he sat forward, “Yes. Honored. Despite your inexplicable departure from the Imperial Court, the Empress has graciously condescended to forgive you, not only for not taking your proper leave of her, but also for not being present so she could personally bestow upon you the Order of St. Anna. Have you any idea at all about the order?”
Sir Antony shook his head. “None.”
“It is the highest order that can be bestowed upon a foreigner. To point out fact, I am not entirely certain it has been conferred on anyone who is not a Russian. You could very well be the first, and thus set the precedent. It is usually given to Russian nobles for exceptional services to the state bureaucracy or for military gallantry. There are four grades within the order, and you, my dear cousin, are being awarded the highest grade.”
“Am I? How extraordinary!” Sir Antony frowned. “What does that mean, precisely?”
The Earl couldn’t suppress a huff of laughter.
“A diplomatic nightmare for His Majesty, and in turn, for me. The King requested I find a solution to the dilemma, and before the trade treaty with the Russians is signed.”
“Far be it for me to cause a fuss for His Majesty, and for you,” Sir Antony retorted mildly. “I’ll write to the Empress and decline the honor if it—”
“You’ll take no such action!” the Earl ordered, all laughter extinguished. “The signing of the trade treaty and the bestowing of the Order of St. Anna go hand-in-glove. You know as well as I, the Russians import more goods from us than they do from the French. And the last thing we want is for the French to offer Catherine more favorable terms. It is imperative the trade agreement between our two nations is signed, sealed and delivered, and if part of the deal requires you to wear a red sash and star from our Russian friends, so be it. You will accept the honor and the treaty will be signed.”
“And the dilemma?”
“The Order of St. Anna in the first grade comes with hereditary ennoblement.”
“Good Lord!”
The Earl pulled a face. “Just so,” he murmured, adding audibly, “The dilemma is that as an Englishman, you cannot be ennobled into the Russian nobility. Yet, the Russians expect you to be rewarded by your own sovereign to the fullest extent of the honor being bestowed upon you. Not to do so would call into question their judgment. That would be a diplomatic nightmare in the making. It is a case of saving face.”
“You have found a solution to this dilemma.”
“I have. It will not only satisfy the Russians but it is acceptable to His Majesty.”
“Naturally.”
The Earl’s expression was deadpan. “I own I’ve missed your ripostes. You always were the master of understatement.”
At such praise from his former mentor, Sir Antony could not help grinning like a schoolboy. What the Earl said next dropped his jaw.
“I have the privilege of informing you that as a consequence of being awarded the Order of St. Anna by Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Queen Catherine, His Majesty is ennobling you a Viscount. You know the formalities, letters patent and then henceforth first Viscount Temple and Baron Stowe and addressed as Lord Temple; your heir to be known as Lord Stowe. Congratulations.”
Sir Antony was about to respond in the usual self-effacing manner to such congratulations when the Earl’s subsequent offhand rejoinder tainted his feeling of other-worldliness at receiving such remarkable news, and deflated his elation.
“Your part in the trade negotiations between our two countries must have been quite something to behold,” Salt said with asperity. “From the correspondence I have read, and the conferring of such a high honor on a foreigner, the Empress must have been most impressed with your—skills…”
When the Earl let the sentence hang, Sir Antony kept his gaze fixed, despite his clean-shaven cheeks darkening at the inference. It was well known at the Russian court and beyond that the Empress Catherine had her male favorites, and that her lovers were rewarded with all manner of gifts and honors for services rendered. Sir Antony had successfully avoided joining a long list of Catherine’s conquests through careful and tactful maneuvering, and with the help of his mentor and friend Prince Mikhail. That the Empress had granted him high honors might confound him, but it was not his cousin’s place to make snide insinuations.
“I am flattered Her Imperial Highness has seen fit to reward my efforts. But you know as well as I that such honors are often bestowed through the recommendations of others.”
“Yes. Prince Mikhail Knyazhevy-Yusupov holds you in the highest regard. So does the Princess, his sister…”
Sir Antony set his jaw.
“I make no apologies for the life I carved out for myself in ’Petersburg. Not when all hope of the life I had envisioned for myself here was extinguished.”
“It is the life you intend to carve out for yourself now you are home which concerns me more.”
Sir Antony smiled thinly. “Oh, I very much want to discuss that with you, but not now, not today. There is a far more serious and pressing state of affairs much closer to home that you and I must deal with before I can begin to contemplate the future, kicked upstairs or not, with any true sense that it belongs to me. My one regret about ’Petersburg is that I am unable to offer the Knyazhevy-Yusupovs my humble thanks in person.
He paused when, for the second time since attempting to address him on the subject of Diana’s escape from her imprisonment, the Earl broke eye contact, distracted by someone or som
ething at Sir Antony’s back. He did not have the bad manners to look over his right shoulder to see who or what it was, but it made him bristle and wonder if it was the butler with a couple of footmen ready to eject him at his noble master’s nod.
“You may not be able to thank the Knyazhevy-Yusupovs in person,” the Earl replied, bringing his gaze back to Sir Antony’s blue eyes, “but you can thank Prince Mikhail’s cousin Prince Ivan Yusupov, who arrived in London only last week, bringing your ribbon and star with him.”
Sir Antony took a step forward, a hand to the mahogany desk. He knew Prince Ivan very well, they had fenced together, and been partners in games of royal tennis, but he did not interrupt the Earl.
“His Highness Prince Ivan is head of a Russian agricultural delegation,” the Earl explained. “Empress Catherine is intent on continuing the policy laid down by her predecessor Peter in sending members of the Imperial Court to England for all manner of edification and cultural exchanges. I have the enviable task of playing host to Prince Ivan, who will be guest of honor at my masquerade ball. Next month a small battalion of Russian bureaucrats from their Ministry of Agriculture will visit Salt Hendon. They are keen to observe and question firsthand the agricultural practices of an English estate. Rufus Willis is chafing at the bit to play tour guide.” He placed his palm on the document he had been reading. “Herein are the terms and conditions of the agreement between our two nations. I’m not convinced which is more burdensome, wading through all two hundred pages of this, or donning a feathered mask and flitting about a ballroom full of Russians. Ah, the trials and tribulations one must endure as a humble servant of the crown.”
Sir Antony was digesting this information when the Earl’s remark about the feathered mask and being a servant of the crown was given particular emphasis by a tinkle of female laughter.
Far from taking offence at being laughed at, the Earl’s austere expression cracked into a grin. He pushed out his chair and stood, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his silk banyan, gaze directed at the second fireplace.
“Do stop teasing Antony,” the Countess playfully chided. “You gave yourself away by pretending you find a return to politics burdensome. Admit to it, my lord. The thought of entertaining a ballroom full of noble Russians, not to mention parading about with your newly-ennobled cousin in his Russian sash and star, to the envy of your political opponents, has you mentally rubbing your hands with glee!”
The Earl chuckled and came around to the front of his desk. He paused and stuck out his hand to Sir Antony.
“Must welcome you upstairs,” he said, in much the old manner in which he had addressed his cousin before his banishment. He warmly shook Sir Antony’s hand and briefly gripped his silken shoulder. “Apologies for casting aspersions on your abilities, Antony, but it is good to hear you earned the honor going about your daily business and not as one of Catherine’s minions. Whatever my darling wife thinks to the contrary about my mentoring abilities,” he said, turning to look at the second fireplace, “I will not own to it! Nor will I agree to what you propose about the upcoming masquerade, my lady. My private glee will be because everyone at the ball will be envious that you are at my side and not theirs.”
Sir Antony swiveled about on the balls of his black leather shoes, and swayed, grateful he was in close proximity to the Earl’s desk, allowing him to keep a hand to the polished surface to stay steady on his feet. His return to London was shaping up to be one of an hourly expectation of a speechless surprise. If he were superstitious, he would blame the loss of his talisman, now in his sister’s keeping. But his life had been turned upside down and inside out long before Diana had ripped his gold locket from the front of his embroidered waistcoat.
In the space of one day he discovered his house commandeered by his unstable sister, who was hiding in full view of the world. He had also found himself in debt to the sum of two thousand pounds. He had then agreed to Caroline’s astonishing demand that they share a bed before marriage. And what of his exhibition in front of servants, and one irate feathered fiend, by enjoying a most wondrous kiss with her? Finally, he had barged into the Earl’s book room making demands without a thought to what lay beyond the door—now this!
Honored by the Russians and being kicked to the Lords as a Viscount by His Majesty was more than enough for one lifetime, least of all one morning call on his noble cousin.
He burned bright with discomfort at the sight presented to him at the arrangement of furniture about the second fireplace. He mentally winced at his stupidity for not realizing sooner the Earl was not alone. Small wonder the book room was off limits; why the Earl was distracted; why he kept diverting the conversation away from mention of Diana; why his responses were more civil than expected; why he had not once raised his voice when Sir Antony had all but shouted at him.
If someone didn’t fetch him a strong cup of tea at once, he believed there was a good possibility he would faint, not from thirst, but from acute embarrassment.
FIFTEEN
AS IF IN ANSWER to Sir Antony’s silent prayer, the butler and two footmen trod lightly down the length of the book room. A footman deposited a silver tea tray on the low table at the center of a group of chairs where the Countess sat, another put a Japanned wooden tray holding a bottle of claret and crystal etched glasses on the Earl’s desk. The butler, once he had positioned the silver teapot on its stand and lit the warmer, went about pouring out a cup of tea for the Countess and placed the fine porcelain Sèvres cup on its saucer on a satinwood whatnot within her easy reach.
When the Earl offered Sir Antony a glass of claret and he declined, preferring a cup of tea, he showed his surprise with a light lift of his eyebrows but said nothing, exchanging a look with his wife as he joined her by the fireplace. The servants silently took their leave, Miller hovering by the tea kettle until the Earl waved him away.
The Countess was comfortably seated on a wingchair, painted cotton overskirt arranged about her and cream silk slippers upon a footstool. Her shiny black hair was in undress, piled loosely on her head and threaded with pale pink ribbons knotted with pearls, the weight allowed to fall across her right shoulder. Her pretty shell pink quilted maternity jacket was untied and gaping.
Jane had her baby son to her breast when Sir Antony disturbed the peace and quiet in the book room. With the nursery maid’s help, a diaphanous silk shawl was strategically draped across the front of her gown, shielding her feeding infant from view before the trespasser realized the Earl was not alone. Still, such arrangements for the sake of protecting the uninitiated—for surely an unmarried man, any man unfamiliar with the basic needs of an infant, must be made uneasy by such an arresting sight—were in vain. While his mother was speaking, her infant son took hold of the embroidered edge of the shawl in his tiny fist and tugged, no doubt in protest at not being able to clearly see the only face in the world that mattered.
“I offer you Sam’s apologies, Antony, but babies have no sense of timing or occasion,” Jane said chattily, in the hopes of easing Sir Antony’s shock and discomfort at discovering her suckling her six-week-old son. “Thus you find me attending to Sam’s needs here in Salt’s book room and not in the nursery. Ned and Beth are having their midmorning rest, which means Salt and I may have an hour or two alone, a rare occurrence these days. And if it requires I intrude on affairs of state, then so be it.” She smiled up at her husband. “I am not entirely convinced being called ‘a welcome distraction’ is complimentary. What do you think, Antony?” When Sir Antony glanced quickly at the Earl, she laughed. “Oh, do forgive me! I should not make you choose sides so soon after your return. You may have a reprieve today, but not tomorrow.”
“You scheming minx!” the Earl retorted lovingly, setting his glass of claret on the ornately carved mantel. “Antony is not five minutes in the front door and you already have him pegged as your petitioner. Ron was right. There are too many females in this house. And with Ron now at Eton, it is only fair all remaining male relati
ves are duly co-opted to my cause. Am I not lord and master in all things?”
“Of course you are, dearest,” Jane responded sweetly, adding with a dimple, “We all say so—in your presence.”
The noble couple laughed at that, sharing a private joke, and Sir Antony was strangely melancholy that there was a time when he, too, would have joined in their laughter. Now he was oddly ill at ease, and sent his gaze anywhere but in direction of the Countess. Jane sensed this and she handed off her replete infant to his nurse to have his little back rubbed to settle his stomach, while she adjusted her clothing behind the lacquered leather screen perpendicular to the settee.
“Please make yourself a dish of tea, Antony, while I make myself presentable. I will then introduce you to the newest member of our family, who, I am quite convinced, will one day be taller and wider than his papa.”
She reappeared a few minutes later, quilted maternity jacket secured, pink silk bows tied and painted cotton overskirt with its frothy under petticoats given a gentle rustle to settle its fall. If she noticed the heavy silence between the two large men in the room, that the Earl remained by the fireplace, he now with his infant son in his arms, Sir Antony still by the writing desk watching his cousin, she ignored it and said at her chatty best,
“I must offer up our apologies for our want of dress. Salt only arrived in town a few hours ago having seen Ron safely embraced by his Eton fellows. As a consequence, he has had no time to do anything but bathe and change and read that wretched document.” She smiled when the Earl pulled a face. “That is not entirely true. Had the children been awake when Papa arrived, it would have been impossible for that document to receive his lordship’s attention, undivided or otherwise! We would have been in the nursery. Which, by the way, is still painted blue, though the Turkey rugs have now seen their fair share of wear. Little boys run everywhere.”
She crossed the space between the settee and the Earl’s desk, a hand out in welcome, and smiled when Sir Antony came gingerly across the room to meet her. When he bowed over her fingers, as befitted her rank as Countess, she pulled him close to kiss his cheek.
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