The Wicked Wyckerly

by Rice, Patricia

“I have two marriageable younger sisters,” Quentin said casually, “and four nieces coming along. You couldn’t find better elsewhere, although their dowries are modest compared to your needs. Still, between them, they know every female in town. We’ll have you sorted out by next week.”

  “Have you booked some wager with Lady Bell on how fast you can marry me off?” Fitz asked, trying to sound nonchalant but feeling as nervous as a cat in a kennel.

  Quentin laughed off his suggestion, leaving Fitz to assume the man never gambled.

  He could be married by the end of the month. He glanced down at Penelope, who had just smeared a dirty thumbprint on the picture she was admiring. Was she worth it?

  He had no idea, but unlike the mess his father and brother had left him, he’d begot her, she was his responsibility, and he would show the world that there was one Wyckerly who knew what duty meant.

  And duty meant seeking the largest dowry at the least cost, which left out the intriguing Miss Merry’s thousand pounds and her expensive battle to acquire four young hellions that he couldn’t afford.

  He wished life calculations were as simple as mathematical ones.

  11

  Pretending to be sweet and complacent was taking its toll on Abigail’s limited patience. After days of chafing under the marchioness’s constant flow of commands, she had begun wearing a locket containing wisps of the twins’ baby hair to remind her why she must listen to the lady and not go haring back to Oxfordshire.

  “The apricot sarcenet for the lining under the lemon yellow georgette,” the marchioness decided, fingering the fabrics the modiste presented. “With the yellow ribbons and no lace.”

  Abby added up the cost of the fragile, impractical gown and forced a smile, trying to appear as if she squandered such riches every day. Since the bills were being charged to an account in her name, she would be fortunate to have a dowry left by the time the dowager tired of spending it. “I really think I should learn the expense of the solicitor first,” she demurred as the modiste scurried off to find a different bolt of silk. “I will never wear these gowns after this season. It seems a waste.”

  “Nonsense. Experience is never wasted. You must see life to know what you want of it. I refuse to let you incarcerate yourself in rural oblivion with four young heathens until you have experienced the world beyond your limited horizons.”

  They’d had this same argument in different variations for days. Now that Abigail was appropriately attired in a fashionable walking gown, boots, and bonnet, the marchioness had finally allowed her out in public. Abby had hoped that meant she might finally visit the lawyer, but apparently it only meant she could acquire more clothing.

  She fiddled with her artfully coiffed curls and glanced down at the long lines of her new gown that—along with the heels on her new boots—almost made her appear tall and slender instead of short and frumpy. Under her hostess’s discriminating eye, she’d been transformed. She loved the femininity of pretty heels and soft gloves, but they were scarcely sensible.

  “I am not the frivolous sort,” she reminded her hostess again. It was very forward of her to argue with her betters, she knew, but polite demurrals had not worked. Nothing seemed to anger or deter the lady.

  “Buried in the country as you were, you had no opportunity to discover what sort you are. Believe me when I say you would come to regret that.” The marchioness waved a dismissive hand. “We will have the report on the children this afternoon. Then we may decide how to proceed. In the meantime, you will need evening gloves to go with the ball gown and proper lingerie. Come along.”

  The horrible part was that Abigail suspected her hostess was right. She had no experience. She gaped like a hayseed at the gaslights going up in Pall Mall, at Gunter’s ices, and at high-perch phaetons rolling behind prancing, matched horses.

  How could she be expected to navigate the narrow paths of society to deal with executors and solicitors, or find a man who could do so, if she didn’t learn to walk bravely in the marchioness’s world? She wasn’t certain how far she could stretch her inheritance, but she knew she was being offered an opportunity beyond her dreams.

  She had no desire to visit Almack’s or ballrooms or rub elbows with nobility—especially if they were all as autocratic as the delicate dowager—but she would love to take the children walking along the Serpentine, or to see the lions in the Tower.

  She was too ignorant to even know what to do if she ran into the earl. Curtsy? It seemed odd after she’d loaned him her father’s clothes. She longed to know how Penelope fared. That Danecroft had not made good his promise to visit in these last four days had hurt her far more than it should. She’d hoped to have one friend in town. But to think of an earl as a friend was probably presumptuous.

  They were preparing to cross a busy intersection to visit still another milliner when Abby heard her name being called in familiar childish excitement. Pulse accelerating, she glanced behind her, looking for broad shoulders in a bottle green coat, certain she would see Lord Danecroft’s handsome presence well before she could find tiny Penny in this crowd.

  Instead, she heard shouted curses and a neighing horse, and froze in horror as she watched Penny dash into the busy street. The marchioness grabbed Abby’s arm and dragged her back onto the walk before she could dart into the road after the child.

  At the same time, a familiar long-legged gentleman in black and gray loped between carriages and wagons, grabbed his irrepressible daughter, and reached the curb with no more than mud splattered on his polished boots.

  Once she could breathe again in relief, Abby was so happy to see Danecroft that she almost imagined the earl’s eyes lit with equal pleasure. But he quickly recovered, properly setting his daughter back on her feet, removing his hat, and making a dashing bow before the marchioness, without acknowledging Abigail’s elegant transformation.

  “My lady!” he called as if he had discovered gold. “It is a true pleasure to see you again.” Only then did he turn to Abby and let a flicker of appreciation appear as his gaze traversed her high-waisted periwinkle blue gown. “Miss Merriweather, I trust you are enjoying your visit to our fair city?” He sounded as formal as if they’d only just met.

  His gaze lingered a shade too long on the tight fit of the spencer over her breasts, and she quivered, not knowing how to react. The marchioness wore an identical garment, and he hadn’t seemed to notice. But otherwise he was being so very proper. . . .

  “At least there are no pigsties.” She spoke as she might have at home. Then biting her tongue, she retreated to comfortable routine by crouching down to hug Penny while hiding her reaction to the pain in her chest. She was, indeed, extremely foolish to think a farmer’s daughter could be friends with an earl.

  “You must not cross the street without looking both ways and holding your papa’s hand,” she scolded, hugging the child. “I almost had a failure of the heart. And look what you have done to your pretty shoes!”

  Penny glanced down at her kid slippers and shrugged. “I don’t like shoes. Papa says I am to have a nursemaid. I’m too big for a nursemaid.”

  The child was quite right. She needed a governess. But it wasn’t Abby’s place to say so. She stood and raised a questioning eyebrow, just in case this aristocratic stranger wished to explain. She might be reticent in unfamiliar situations, but she wasn’t shy. Danecroft wore his suit of mourning with all the panache she would never possess, right down to the pearl stickpin she remembered first admiring, but he still didn’t know what was best for his daughter.

  The earl shrugged in the same careless manner as Penny. “Governesses require rooms and servants, who require more rooms. All very tedious.”

  He had an entire town house full of rooms—and no money. Abby nodded, fighting the urge to offer aid, for Penny’s sake. She could hire a cook and a governess for the cost of the gown and accessories she’d just bought.

  “I hear Quentin has snared you into escorting his legion of female relations,” the marc
hioness said blithely. “They have no wealth. You can do better.”

  “I’ll inquire at Tattersall’s as to the price of a good earl these days,” Danecroft responded with smiling archness.

  “A stud with a pedigree like yours surely will bring a handsome price,” Lady Belden cooed.

  Abby winced. She truly disliked society’s habit of demeaning one another in the name of wit, but apparently this was how the ton communicated. She gritted her teeth and remained silent.

  “The Hoyt chits are acting as my secretaries, sorting through the unusual flood of invitations. It seems my charming presence has suddenly become fashionable.”

  Abby heard soul-deep irony behind that observation and wondered if he could be callous enough to accept a society that appreciated him only for his title—and wouldn’t want his daughter at all.

  Unaffected by Danecroft’s caustic tone, the marchioness laughed.

  Leaving the two elegant aristocrats to flirt and exchange insults, Abby retied Penny’s bonnet ribbons and tucked her braids inside her pelisse. She was concerned for the child, that was all. Why should she consider the earl’s feelings when he had refined, wealthy ladies at his beck and call? It didn’t matter one jot to her that he could be escorting elegant beauties to balls and soirees. A fortnight ago she hadn’t even known he existed. Just because she was lonely and had wept in his arms and dreamed of far more didn’t mean that he had ever thought of her at all.

  “Do you have at-home hours?” Lord Danecroft inquired of the dowager. “I would like to call, if I would be welcome.”

  The marchioness tapped him with her fan. “Bring Quentin’s sisters, and you will be welcome. I will employ their organizational abilities in launching Miss Merriweather into society.”

  The earl beamed, appropriated Penny’s hand, and, with no more than a wink in Abby’s direction, sauntered away.

  As they progressed down the street, a ruffian approached the earl with loud complaints in an incomprehensible accent. The earl insouciantly held up his walking stick to shield Penny, and the pair were soon gone from sight.

  “Pockets to let,” the dowager reminded Abby, resuming their journey to the milliner. “Excellent for occupying space at the dinner table, but totally unsuitable for your purposes, and he knows it. Your inheritance would be merely a drop in the bucket of his obligations, and any executor worth his salt would object to your siblings living in poverty.”

  Abby swallowed her protests. Since the earl had absolutely no interest in her, there was no use in arguing the benefits of her frugality. What did she know of an earl’s debts? Her inheritance sounded like a grand fortune to her, but she was learning that living in society cost far more than she could afford.

  “Really, my lord,” the tall, blond miss beside Fitz said disparagingly as her footman knocked on the marchioness’s door the next day, “it is most improper to take a child on a morning call. Now that she has a nanny, she should stay home.”

  In his still-roach-infested house. He knew better than to mention that objection. He helped Penny from the lady’s carriage as the marchioness’s servant answered the door. “Call me Fitz, Lady Sally. And you will understand my impropriety shortly.”

  “Danecroft,” she corrected. “I am ten years your junior and it would be disrespectful to address you with familiarity.”

  But it wasn’t disrespectful to correct his etiquette. Ah, the flagrant genius of youth! Quentin’s sisters had been drilled in the formality of the position their father would one day inherit. He doubted there was a duchess alive who took her rank more seriously than the daughters of a newly made marquess. He hoped they’d lighten up in a year or two. They seemed pleasant enough chits otherwise.

  Their naïveté made him feel old. And jaded. And dissolute.

  Awed by their entrance into Lady Belden’s home, Penny gaped at the towering hall with its Adam ceiling, ornate wall sconces, and abundance of bigger-than-life-sized paintings. He diverted her gaze from a fig-leafed statue in a wall niche and pointed out the enormous bouquet on the chest where guests left their cards on a silver platter.

  “I want a flower,” she whispered, gazing longingly at the colorful array of roses and other blooms Fitz couldn’t identify.

  “I will buy you a posy later, if you behave,” he promised.

  She nodded solemnly, her eyes as wide as saucers and her tiny hand squeezing his. At times like this, he knew he was mad to even consider raising a child on his own. Bringing the unpredictable brat into these exalted echelons proved his ignorance.

  But Penny needed the attention of a woman, and Miss Merriweather was singularly silent when his daughter wasn’t present. He didn’t dare enter Miss Merry’s presence without her.

  “Miss Abby!” his daughter cried in delight the instant she discovered her idol setting aside a book in the echoing, high-ceilinged tunnel that the marchioness called a drawing room. “I’m gonna get a posy!”

  Jerking her hand from his, she flew across the carpet and dived into Miss Abby’s arms.

  Fitz would gladly have done the same. He had almost publicly swallowed his tongue the other day when he’d seen her in that revealing walking dress.

  Today, his pocket Venus looked almost ethereal in a dainty green frock that hugged her bounteous breasts and draped seductively over her lovely curves. Bereft of horrendous bonnets, her sunset curls were held back by a ribbon. The locks had been fashionably trimmed and curled to frame her petite face in a manner that begged caressing.

  Fitz fisted his fingers and resisted testing curly silkiness. At Lady Sally’s tug, he remembered his manners, and bowed over Lady Bell’s hand. As the daughter of an Irish earl, she had once been known as Lady Isabell or Lady Bell. According to gossip, she claimed she’d married Lord Belden so she wouldn’t have to change her name. Fitz hadn’t been in town long at the time of her marriage and knew little more than society hearsay about her circumstances.

  At the dowager’s invitation, he accepted tea and wished for brandy. He watched Penny and Miss Merriweather whisper to each other on a distant sofa while Sally and Isabell charted his course and Abby’s with all the expertise of generals plotting a campaign. He had not thought Lady Sally moved in the dowager’s circles, given that Sally’s brother dealt in trade. Of course, Fitz could scarcely afford the society frequenting Almack’s to know who was accepted or not.

  “Excellent,” he heard Isabell murmur. “Danecroft’s attentions will draw the notice of other gentlemen to Abigail. And the matchmaking mamas will not see him as so much of a gazetted fortune hunter if he’s entertaining my protégée. Your brother must keep him from the gaming tables until he’s formally attached.”

  Their voices lowered, and Fitz grimaced and sipped the weak tea. He made an honest living at the gaming tables. He needed funds to keep up appearances if the women meant to drag him about like a prized Thoroughbred. Gratuities to the servants, impromptu ices and ribbons, flowers after the dance—all required coins he didn’t possess. The loan he’d acquired barely paid his solicitors to keep the bailiffs at bay while they sorted out the estate’s inventory and entailment and debts. He didn’t have enough left to pay for decent rooms for Penny and her nanny.

  His heir had been ominously silent since Fitz’s arrival had squelched the suicide rumors. An expression of delight that the head of the family had returned from the dead would have been polite, but Fitz supposed that would be too much to ask from a man to whom he seldom spoke. He’d asked the family solicitor to send a note round to Geoff, asking for a word, but he’d not heard back.

  Penny dragged Miss Merriweather from her seat to investigate a large floor globe that had once adorned the late marquess’s study. Fitz wondered at its placement in this feminine room and, without conscious decision, rose to investigate it as well.

  “It is good of you to bring Penny to see me, my lord,” his Rhubarb Girl said stiffly at his approach. “She tells me her nanny snores, and she has swatted two thousand million spiders.”

  Th
ere was the clever little hen he knew. He couldn’t wait to hear her opinion of the ton. “I have promoted Penny to chief bug swatter and awarded her the copper badge of courage.”

  Penny proudly peeled back her spencer to reveal the silly ha’penny pin he’d found in the gutter. “See? It says I’m a big girl.”

  “Big and strong,” Miss Abby agreed solemnly. “As chief bug swatter, you must instruct your papa to sprinkle the corners with pennyroyal after you have swept out all the cobwebs.”

  “Pennyroyal?” they both asked at once. Fitz was rewarded by the light of laughter in Miss Merry’s eyes.

  “Like father, like daughter,” she said with what almost sounded like approval. “You really make a bad earl. You should be appalled at my suggestion. You should be over there scheming with the marchioness, choosing the perfect plum to pick from the wealthy orchard of society.”

  “I prefer tart rhubarb with my sweets. You have ruined me for all time.” Fitz immediately bit his tongue. After all the years of practice, flattery came naturally to him, but he had no right to encourage her to think of him as any more than a tool to be used, just as he would use her.

  Unfooled by his glib phrases, she eyed him with a trace of that tartness he so admired. “As I understand, you were ruined long before I came along.”

  She handed Penny a snow globe containing an elaborate miniature of Hyde Park, then stepped toward the window seat, where the clatter of traffic outside would hide her speech. “Is the house really that bad that she must swat spiders?”

  “Worse,” he admitted grimly. Miss Merry had seen him flailing in a pigsty and could see through his affectations of charm with her eagle eye, and still, she did not reject his shallowness. She might be the one person on earth to whom he could speak honestly. “It’s been uninhabited for a decade or more, but staying there saves me the cost of rent. Will the pennyroyal work?”

  “After every room is thoroughly cleaned, perhaps. The stench of lye will drive out most creatures. I don’t suppose the nanny is of any use in sweeping and scrubbing?”