An Angel for the Earl

by Barbara Metzger

  “I cannot imagine anything drearier than spending the rest of eternity in heaven with one’s poor relations”—a frown toward Aunt Clara—“unless it’s spending it in hell with your father. I refuse to contemplate either.”

  “And no reason you should, at your tender years.” Mr. Flint reached out a fat hand and patted the dowager’s arm. Kerry almost choked and Aunt Clara smirked.

  “And you, Mr. Flint? Have you thought about the hereafter?”

  Gideon took a long swallow of wine. “Well, m’lord, I’ve thought about it, all right. I like to be prepared, don’t you know. It’s always paid in my business. I think those stories about reward and punishment are tales to scare the kiddies. Just in case there are fleecy clouds, though, with dancing girls and flowing wines, I’ve been paying my dues at the church.”

  “You hope to buy your way into heaven?”

  “No, they say you can’t take it with you. This way it’ll be waiting there for me.”

  After dinner Mr. Flint excused himself. “Hope you don’t mind my leaving you to take your port alone, m’lord. Lady Stanford expects me in the parlor, don’t you know. We get up a hand or two of piquet. Helps to pass the time.”

  Kerry had been thinking of a way to warn the man off. The chap was as vulgar as a Punch-and-Judy skit, and as likable, but Lady Stanford and a midnight-merchant? Preposterous. “Fine, fine,” he said. “You go on and join the ladies. I wanted to start looking over the books this evening anyway. We'll be too busy for such quiet evenings for some time now, I expect, with the countess planning that ball to entertain every eligible female in the county. Enjoy the card game while you may. You will likely be the last company we invite for a while.” There, he congratulated himself, that wasn’t too broad a hint.

  It was so narrow, Mr. Flint missed it entirely. “Oh, I ain’t company, m’lord. Margie treats me like one of the family. You can call me Goldy, lad.”

  * * *

  Lucy was ecstatic. “What a wonderful place! It’s perfect!”

  “Perfect? It’s shabby and run-down, overstaffed and undersupervised. These ledgers resemble the Rosetta stone, and the bailiff has been robbing me blind. My aunt has bats in her bell tower, my mother is on the verge of the misalliance of the century with a free-booter who has the run of the place, and you think it’s perfect?”

  “Oh, yes! Think of all the opportunities to do good deeds!”

  Chapter Eleven

  The ledger books were not improved by the earl’s staying up all night to pore over them. Neither was his cold. The fireplace in his bedchamber wasn’t working, according to a footman who reported that chimneys in the unused chambers were not cleaned in the interests of economy, milord. Milord snapped back that economies could dashed well begin in the servants’ hall, not his bedchamber. Which conversation, dutifully reported below stairs, had the staff spending a restless night, too, fearful of losing positions or what few comforts the Abbey offered.

  Unable to sleep, the glum footmen heard their master talking to himself downstairs in the estate office half the night. Two handed in their resignations before breakfast. Why wait to be dismissed when the employer was not only a nipfarthing, but touched in the upper works besides? Cook huddled in her cot all night with the cooking sherry, praying to be delivered from the Abbey ghosts, so breakfast didn’t promise to be any great shakes anyway.

  Without coffee Kerry had even less success deciphering the books. For the life of him, he couldn’t see where Wilmott was putting the dowager’s money to use. His pride nagged at him, that his mother was using her own pension to pay for his household expenses. Every manly sensibility was offended, as if he’d been hiding behind a woman’s skirts, living as a gigolo, marrying for money. Furthermore, if her income were intact, she might take herself off to Bath, to meet gout-ridden generals and dyspeptic dukes. Anything but wealthy merchants of questionable backgrounds.

  Lady Stanford never went to London, she said, because she could not tolerate the endless embarrassing gossip about her only son and his raffish ways, which she managed to keep very well informed about here in the country. Kerry suspected the dowager’s rustication was also caused by an embarrassment of funds. She could not make a splash in the metropolis, and she liked being a big fish in the small pond of Derby society. Kerry made a note to write to Mr. Stenross, inquiring into the exact specifications of his mother’s pension. Meanwhile, the idea of sending Lady Stanford to Bath appealed to Lord Stanford, and not just to get her away from Goldy Flint.

  So where was the dowager’s money going? Was she paying servants’ wages off the books, or merchants’ bills in cash that was never recorded in the household accounts? Absurd, considering the amounts charged to the estate. There appeared to be enough servants to keep the Tower of London clean and enough foodstuffs to satisfy the Carlton House set. For two elderly ladies? No, Wilmott had to be inflating the expenses and pocketing the dowager’s cash, then draining the estate income to pay the bills. No wonder the mortgages were never met. No wonder Kerry never saw a shilling of profit.

  Wilmott had to go. At worst he was a crook; at best he was an inefficient manager and a terrible bookkeeper.

  Wilmott came to give his notice before Kerry even sent for him.

  “Now that you’re here, my lord, I can leave with a free conscience. I did my best for you, with no thanks. The land’s gone to ruin while you and yourn live high on the hog, and it ain’t right, I tell you. Disheartening to a fellow it is, to see his work gone for naught but gaming debts and fancy togs. Did you answer when I wrote as how the income had to go back into the property for improvements? Nary a word. And when I said expenses were too high? Nary a word. Well, now you’re back to see for yourself, and good riddance to you, I say. I’ve had an offer from a gentleman t’other side of the county. Wants to raise sheep. Be a relief to work for someone who wants to raise anything but Cain. And don’t worry about paying my salary, you haven’t for the last two quarters anyway.”

  When the echo of the slamming door died, Lord Stanford hunched forward and put his head in his hands. Either the fellow was a fine actor, or Kerry’s last chance of making sense out of the estate business had just deserted him. He blew his nose and made a note to pay the man his back wages if he did, indeed, deserve them. Lud, he needed a drink.

  “You need some hot soup and a warm bed,” Lucy told him, appearing at the end of his desk, looking concerned.

  He blew his nose again. “No. Too much to do. I don’t suppose you know any magic tricks to fix this mess?” He waved a hand at the ledgers. “I know, you’re a demon, not a wizard. Maybe I’d do better to go upstairs and ask Uncle Nigel’s advice.”

  “About Uncle Nigel…”

  “Not now, Lucy, I’ve got to do some thinking.”

  Kerry’s immediate concerns were finding an honest, intelligent bailiff, redeeming his mother’s jewels, which debt weighed heavily on his mind, and visiting the local haberdashery. The haberdasher came first.

  The drive through his property to the village of Standing Falls made him realize like nothing before the extent of his difficulties. A new waistcoat he could afford, and trousers and a superfine coat that needed only minor tailoring. But the fallen roofs, the deserted cottages, the shoeless children, the unfriendly faces on people he’d known all his life—how could he ever hope to fix all that?

  Lucy wanted to talk about the Golden Rule. “You know, do unto others…”

  “I know that, blast it. Don’t you think I’d like to make everything right? Or have you painted me so black that I don’t care about the plight of these people? It’s a wonder you haven’t given up on me, then,” he added morosely, falling deeper into the doldrums with every new reminder of the poverty around them.

  “You could afford to smile, at least. I’m sure you’d feel better if people were pleasant to you.”

  So he waved and tried to smile, with his red, drippy nose and heavy head. The villagers just shook their heads. Drink must have addled the rake’s brain
box, on top of everything else. Grinning like a fool and talking to hisself. No hope there.

  * * *

  Kerry felt better after the visit to the haberdasher’s, especially when his cash payment brought the first sign of friendliness he’d seen. Vanity might be a sin, but a fellow’s amour propre suffered grievously in castoffs. Now he was ready to face the shopkeeper in Farley whose chits he held, in place of his mother’s jewels. Redeeming the diamonds might take the last of his latest windfall, but a grown man should not stand indebted to his own mother.

  Gilmore’s on Center Street was almost as discreet as the jeweler Kerry patronized in London when temporarily in dun territory. There was a silver tea service in the window—Kerry was relieved not to recognize the inscribed crest—and some gilt-framed portraits hanging on the walls over shelves of vases, epergnes, and candelabra. Glass cases with velvet-lined shelves held rows of timepieces, snuffboxes, and any kind of jewelry a lovesick swain might purchase to win a lady’s heart, any kind of trinket a down-at-the-heels lady might pop to earn a few pounds.

  The shop wasn’t terribly busy. A young country-dressed couple was looking at rings; a foppish gentleman of middling years in yellow cossack trousers was surveying a tray of quizzing glasses.

  Mr. Gilmore left the coxcomb experimenting with each of the lenses to greet his newest—and most prestigious-looking—customer. Kerry’s stature and bearing proclaimed his nobility, even if his Hessians would never be the same and his many-caped greatcoat still showed dog footprints. The bespectacled shopkeeper was even more delighted when Kerry presented his card.

  “The Earl of Stanford,” he read loudly, when Kerry’s intention in handing over the card was to maintain his anonymity. Gilmore even bowed at the waist, in case any of his other clientele missed the aristocratic presence in the little shop. The dandy inspected Kerry through one of the looking glasses, like some new specimen of insect, until the earl glared back at him.

  “Just so, milord, honored indeed,” Gilmore was prattling. “You must be here for her ladyship’s diamonds.”

  “Yes,” Kerry replied, trying for a bit of subtlety. “I understand she brought them in to be cleaned.”

  “Cleaned, is it?” Gilmore chuckled as he wiped his spectacles. “That’s the first time I’ve heard it called that. I’ll just fetch them from out back. I never do put her ladyship’s goods up for sale, you know, for she always manages to buy them back before any big party. I suppose you’ll be having a ball up at the Abbey, now you’re to home.”

  Kerry did not respond, wasting a haughty set-down stare at the gabble-grinder’s back. Mr. Gilmore was too excited at having a real earl in his store to notice the icy silence. “Too bad about the gambling,” he shouted from behind the partitioning curtain. “They say it’s like a disease.”

  “You, sir, are impertinent,” the Earl of Stanford snapped back when Gilmore placed the necklace, bracelet, ring, and tiara on the counter. Gads, first Wilmott, now this bumpkin of a shopkeeper. Did every rustic feel free to comment on Kerry’s gaming habits? He turned to scowl at the young couple, who were looking at him as if he were an ax murderer. He almost shouted that his debts were all paid and he’d given up the practice, by Jupiter. And if the man-milliner didn’t stop viewing Kerry through that eyepiece, he’d soon find his one enlarged orb closed by Kerry’s fist. As for the counter-jumper, no, that was beneath the earl’s dignity. He took out his wallet, eager to get this transaction over and done with.

  When Kerry turned back to lay his blunt on the glass case, his motions were arrested by the sight of Lucy sitting on the counter, hammering at his mother’s diamond necklace with her shoe.

  “What the deuce are you doing now? Put that down, I say!”

  At which the tulip dropped the three quizzing glasses he’d been stuffing in his pocket while Gilmore’s attention was on the earl. He fled, Gilmore in pursuit calling for the watch. The young couple shook their heads and left.

  Unaware, Lucy was battering away at the diamonds, to absolutely no avail, of course, since her shoe kept passing right through them. Kerry snatched the necklace out of her reach anyway, and held it up to the window to make sure there was no damage. Then he reached for one of the quizzing glasses the would-be thief had dropped and studied the diamonds even more closely.

  “By all that’s holy, they’re paste!”

  “Of course they are, my lord,” Gilmore said, returning and mopping his bald head while he caught his breath. “Do you think I would lend the countess this mere pittance if they were real?” The pittance he indicated was almost Kerry’s entire bankroll. “Her ladyship would never pawn her real jewels, just the ones she wears every day without fear of losing them.” He put the necklace, ring, and bracelet into a velvet pouch, the tiara in a wooden box. “I’m sure the originals are safe at home in your vault.”

  Kerry was certain they were not; why would the dowager have the vapors over her copies when she had the originals to wear for that blasted ball she was planning?

  Mr. Gilmore was going on: “But forgive me, my lord, I have not expressed my gratitude for your alert intervention. The thief got away, but you saved me a tidy sum in trinkets. I am in your debt.”

  Kerry noticed that the man did not feel indebted enough to hand back the outrageous sum he’d just pocketed for paste diamonds. Paste, for pity’s sake!

  “And to show my appreciation,” the storekeeper was saying, “I’ll give you back the rubies at no interest.”

  “The rubies, you say! They’re entailed! Mother could never put them on tick.”

  “Austrian crystals, this set.”

  Kerry forked over the last of his ready for glass rubies, and cursed the entire ride home while Lucy’s cheeks got redder. Embarrassment or returning rouge, he didn’t know which, and he didn’t care right then.

  The real jewels were not in the vault, of course. What were there instead were receipts for gaming slips—Kerry recognized them well—in payment of which his mother had pledged her rings, bracelets, necklaces, and the diamond tiara. And his ruby parure and the Stanford engagement ring.

  “I’ll strangle her. I’ll put my hands around her scrawny neck and I’ll—”

  “The Chinese philosopher Confucius phrased the Golden Rule in the negative: do not do to others what you wouldn’t like done to you.”

  The dowager hadn’t been pawning her valuables to make ends meet, she’d been meeting gambling debts. Worst of all, the name on the receipts, the person now in possession of his mother’s jewelry, and the Stanford rubies, was none other than Gideon Flint.

  “Why, that…that dastard. That’s how he got so rich, not by smuggling at all, but by diddling wealthy widows out of their gems. And that’s why she lets a loose screw like that run tame at the Abbey. She’s so much in his debt, she daren’t say no.”

  “I thought she was just lonely,” Lucy put in, still bending over the safe.

  Kerry was almost too distraught to notice her rounded rear end, but he wasn’t dead yet, so he paused in his ranting to admire the view. Backsliding had its advantages; Lucy wore no shift or petticoat. He sighed.

  “It doesn’t matter what methods that bounder used to win her trust. He holds those vouchers and I’m back in debt. I cannot let my mother be beholden to such a blackguard. Who knows what liberties a pirate like that might take? How in blue blazes I’m supposed to redeem those jewels, I’ll never know. And here I was, finally caught up on the mortgages. I even thought I’d have some brass to invest in the Abbey like everyone’s always nattering at me to do, so the estate could start paying again.”

  “Did you know Uncle Nigel had shares in a copper mine in Haiti?” Lucy straightened up, but her hair was all undone. Kerry’s hands itched to run through the silky tresses, watching the red turn to gold. He sighed again—he was doing that a lot lately—and bent to look into the safe. He pulled out a partnership deed.

  “Good try, Lucy, but the paper is useless. I remember my father raging on about Nigel’s West Indies b
ubble. My uncle put most of his capital in the venture and never saw a ha’penny back. The thing went bust in slave uprisings. And even if it hadn’t, his shares reverted to his partners when he drowned.”

  “About Uncle Nigel…”

  “No, some worthless copper mine shares can’t help me now. It’s looking more and more like the home woods have to go after all. Or my horses.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Both. Kerry was going to have to sell off the timber stand after all, and the string of hunters he kept stabled at the Abbey. A quick ride around the home farm to burn off some of his fury before confronting his mother showed him how much needed to done. Even his inexperienced eye put the cost at well over what he could realize from the price of his horses. He hadn’t been able to afford the hunt last year anyway; this year looked to be no different. Why should he have the nags eating their heads off in the stables, requiring grooms and exercise boys, when he had better use for the money?

  Kerry surprised himself by realizing that he wouldn’t mind half so much selling off his stable in order to make an investment in the future. A new plow, say, or having a work crew come in to dig that drainage ditch. But to pay his mother’s gambling debts to a rogue of a neighbor who most likely fuzzed the cards besides? Now, that was a waste of fine horseflesh, like the prime goer under him right now. To say nothing of that woodland where his tree house still leaned precariously among the branches. Hell and tarnation!

  Stanford kept riding at a furious pace, past his property line, past the small farms, past the little village, until he could see a large house on a hill. Lord Humboldt’s derelict old place used to be the neighborhood’s haunted house, attracting small boys who would dare each other to knock on the door or snatch a fallen chestnut from the big tree beside the windows. Now the mansion was all in lights as dusk fell, with every pane of glass shining, every shrub manicured into precision. Goldy Flint had put his money to good use.