Ashton: Lord of Truth (Lonely Lords Book 13)

by Grace Burrowes

  No suitable replacement had appeared even as London’s ranks of single gentlemen had swelled with spring’s approach. Ashton Fenwick wasn’t suitable either, but needs must when the devil taxed every window and bar of soap a woman owned.

  Mr. Fenwick’s nails were clean, not that clean nails signified anything. He was handsome, too, and that was the problem. Not in a pretty, Bond Street way, but in the robust, muscular manner of the countryman. Dark hair and dark eyes suggested Celtic ancestry, and for all his brawn, his manners were fine.

  In fancy ballroom attire, he’d turn every head, which was the last reaction Matilda wanted her lodgers to inspire.

  “About the cobbler?” Helen asked as Matilda withdrew her fingers from Mr. Fenwick’s callused grip.

  “Mrs. Bryce and I are having a wee business negotiation, child. We’ll get to your cobbler.”

  Helen sighed gustily, despite having had a brush with disaster. The girl had no idea how lucky she’d been to pick Mr. Fenwick’s pocket, rather than that of a less tolerant citizen.

  “If I’m to rent from you,” Mr. Fenwick said, “I’ll need a servant of sorts, somebody to let my groom know when I need my horse, to fetch my evening meal from the chophouse, to polish my boots. Have you a boot boy or underfootman who can serve in that capacity?”

  Well, drat and perdition. If it wasn’t a gentleman’s horses Matilda couldn’t accommodate, it was his boots.

  “I have only a maid of all work, though your quarters provide room for a servant in the attics, should you wish to hire one.”

  Mr. Fenwick’s gaze roamed the interior of the Goose, a typical London public house. The ceiling was low and the beams exposed. The plank floor was uneven and centuries of smoke had turned the rafters black.

  The patrons at the Goose came from many walks of life: the swells and dandies dangling after the actresses, the working folk happy to end their day with a pint, and the actresses and shopgirls who needed a safe place to take an occasional meal.

  The highest and mightiest of polite society, however, did not frequent the Goose, and thus Matilda could tarry with Mr. Fenwick and try to haggle him back under her roof.

  “I’m sure we can send your boots out,” she said, “or my maid can have a go at them.” To do a proper job on a gentleman’s boots was time-consuming. Matilda did not flatter herself that she had the skill, or she’d gladly take it on.

  “I can be your boot boy,” Helen said. “Me da taught me how to shine boots, and I’m ever so fast if you want a note delivered or a meat pie brought ’round.”

  “Helen, you’re not a boot boy,” Matilda said. “You’re not a boy at all.”

  “But you are a thief,” Mr. Fenwick said, his tone appraising. “If an incompetent one.”

  “I told you,” Helen retorted. “If you’d carried your purse where a purse ought to go, I’d have nicked it clean and proper. If I wasn’t a damned good cutpurse, me da would have beat me lights out. He told me so himself.”

  At the bar, Mr. Treacher’s rag stopped its rhythmic polishing. One of the tavern maids slanted a glance in Helen’s direction, and Matilda had all she could do not to slap her hand over the child’s mouth.

  “If you think I’ll put a serving of cobbler in front of you to prevent you from crying your own doom,” Mr. Fenwick said, “think again, my girl. English law lists more than two hundred hanging offenses, theft among them. A little thing like you would take a very long time to die on the end of a rope.”

  For once, Helen looked daunted.

  Thank God.

  Mr. Fenwick was tall, broad-shouldered, and exactly the sort of man Matilda ought not to be giving a key to her house. She had a separate lock on her own rooms, but the hardware was old, and Mr. Fenwick was in his prime. She’d put him not much past thirty, with a history of manual labor such as a steward or wealthy yeoman might undertake.

  Gentlemanly manual labor, which ought to be a contradiction in terms.

  His speech was educated, but accented—Borders, or perhaps Cumberland—and his attire suggested he knew better than to advertise his means on the open road. That he wanted only two weeks’ lodging was a shame. He was from out of town, which was good, and he had dealt kindly with Helen so far—which was very good.

  “Have you ever ridden a horse?” Mr. Fenwick asked Helen. “The truth, or no cobbler.”

  “How will you know if I’m lying?”

  “You’ll be dead,” he replied, opening the sack of cobbler so the scent of apples and cinnamon wafted about the table. “My horse is an enormous specimen named Destrier. If you don’t know what you’re about, he’ll toss you to the ground like so much dirty linen.”

  “I could lead him.”

  “You’re considering hiring Helen as your lackey?” Matilda interjected. The Goose made a very fine cobbler. She’d forgotten that.

  “For two weeks,” Mr. Fenwick said. “My needs are modest, Helen knows the neighborhood, and she can use the wage.”

  “You’d pay me?”

  Helen’s consternation tore at Matilda’s heart and woke up her distrust. “I cannot condone an arrangement which puts a little girl into the direct employ of a man about whom I know next to nothing.” Terrible things happened to children loose on London’s streets. Things Matilda could not have comprehended at Helen’s age, things Helen had probably witnessed firsthand.

  Mr. Fenwick put a serving of cobbler down before Matilda. “We are strangers, true. What would you like to know about me, Mrs. Bryce?”

  The second serving he set before Helen, who at least recalled to put her linen back on her lap before she picked up her fork. Matilda tried to impart some manners on the rare occasions when Helen came by for a meal, but etiquette stood no chance against a ravenous belly.

  Matilda took a bite of spicy, fruity delight while she considered Mr. Fenwick’s question. The cobbler needed to be a bit warmer and slathered in cream to be truly exquisite, but it was very good nonetheless.

  “I want to know that you are honorable,” Matilda said. “You appear without character references, so I don’t see how we’re to establish your trustworthiness. I can demand your coin before you set foot in my house, but Helen’s safety is less easily guarded.”

  “I love cobbler,” Helen said. “He doesn’t have to pay me. Just let me eat cobbler every day.”

  “Wee Helen, if I feed you cobbler, how will you buy a new cap when somebody snatches that fine bit of millinery from your head?”

  “I’ll snatch it back.”

  Mr. Fenwick plucked the cap from the girl’s head again, and this time she smiled. “You’re very quick, sir. I could show you how to pick pockets, if you like.”

  He plopped the hat down on her head. “Wages, my child. Cash in hand, coin of the realm. That’s how you want to be paid. All else is dross, and be mindful of Mrs. Bryce’s example. I’m to pay her first, and when she’s seen my coin, then and only then will I have what I need in return.”

  Helen was perilously pretty when she smiled. Better for her if she were homely and pockmarked. In a very few years, her beauty would become a liability, unless Matilda could make a parlor maid, or a—

  Inspiration struck. “What if I raised your rent to cover Helen’s services?” Matilda asked. “She’d be answerable to me, but available to fetch your horse, tend your boots, and buy your meals?”

  “You’d give her a bed in the attics?” Mr. Fenwick asked as Helen slurped up her cobbler. “Breakfast, laundry services?”

  “Mrs. B can’t do my laundry ’cause these are my only clothes. I stole ’em off a clothesline, and they still fit me.”

  “She’s determined to get herself hanged,” Matilda muttered. “I try, but her older sister undermines my efforts.”

  Helen’s head came up. “Don’t you say nuffink bad about my Sissy.”

  “If today is any example,” Mr. Fenwick said, “Sissy is no better at crime than you are, and that is a compliment. How much to hire Helen as my general factotum?”

  T
he arrangement was unusual. Little girls didn’t sport about in trousers and work for gentleman lodgers. And yet, those trousers had probably yielded Helen more security and well-being than Matilda’s occasional bowl of porridge had.

  Matilda named a sum—a fortune by Helen’s standards, a pittance compared to what many earned in service to a great house.

  “Done,” Mr. Fenwick said, rising. “Helen, you’ll need a name I can call you in public. Hector, I think. It suits you. You will take this cobbler to your sister, explain where she can find you for the next two weeks and that you’ll be biding in Mrs. Bryce’s house. You will report to my quarters two hours from now, and I’ll show you where I’m stabling my cattle.”

  “How will I know it’s two hours?”

  “You listen to the bells,” Matilda said, for she’d had to figure that out when she’d sold her last watch. “The cathedral bells just chimed a quarter past the hour, so you listen for seven more chimes. By the eighth tolling of the bells, you’d best be at my house.”

  Helen counted off on her fingers. “Eight times. Can I take Sissy her cobbler now?”

  May I. Matilda saved the grammar instruction for another day.

  “Off with you,” Mr. Fenwick said, gently tucking the girl’s braids back up under her cap. “Two hours, or you’ll be sacked before you begin.”

  Helen—miraculous to relate—stood still while Mr. Fenwick fussed with her hair. She then snatched the sack holding the last cobbler and darted off.

  “She is quick,” he said. “You were quicker. Why did you stop her?”

  By preventing Helen’s flight, Matilda had left the child open to the risk of incarceration, or worse.

  “Instinct, I suppose. If somebody doesn’t intervene with her, she won’t last much longer. I met her when she tried to break into my house last year. A lame, drowned rat would have been less pathetic, and her sister means her no good.”

  Mr. Fenwick rose. “Will we see her again?”

  He was big and fit. Helen must have been desperate to think she could steal from this man with impunity.

  “I honestly don’t know. I hope so. Shall I show you to your lodging?”

  “I’d like that.” He offered his hand, as if Matilda hadn’t been getting up off her own backside unassisted for years. “I’m mostly in need of a bath and a nap. If you’ll offer me those, I’ll be your devoted slave for the next two weeks.”

  He wrapped Matilda’s hand around a very muscular arm, as if she were a proper lady. He had a mama, then, or sisters. Possibly a wife.

  The thought shouldn’t bother her.

  “We haven’t far to go,” she said as they emerged from the Goose. “I assume you have baggage?”

  “Aye, and once I have your direction, I’ll see to having a trunk delivered. Can you recommend a decent chophouse in the area?”

  He made pleasant small talk with her for the short walk to Pastry Lane, and Matilda had the first inkling that Ashton Fenwick might be trouble. He was a considerate escort, matching his steps to hers, always taking the outside lest some passing coach splash her skirts.

  He tipped his hat to the women who took notice of him.

  He bore a faint fragrance of bayberry shaving soap, and he tossed a coin to the crossing sweeper.

  Any one of these observations would not have alarmed Matilda, but the longer she walked at Mr. Fenwick’s side, the more convinced she became that he was a gentleman in truth. Probably a wealthy gentleman, given how circumspect the Scots were when it came to displaying their riches.

  “If I needed to stay on a bit longer than two weeks, could that be arranged?” he asked as Matilda led him up the front steps to her house.

  The last person she ought to accept as a lodger was a wealthy gentleman about whom she knew little and from whom she had no references.

  “Why don’t we see how you like the accommodations?” she replied. “They might not be to your taste.”

  “The accommodations will be entirely acceptable,” he said, pushing the door open and waiting for Matilda to precede him through.

  The manners were a subtle reminder of all she’d run from, all she’d left behind, and yet to him, they were the most casual exercise of consideration.

  She showed him the rooms—clean, as she’d said, comfortable, unpretentious. The bed was huge, being an antique from when the house had been a grander establishment. The windows overlooked her tiny garden rather than the noisy street.

  “I’ll be more than happy here,” he said, tossing his hat onto the hook above the sideboard. “If you don’t mind, I’ll have that nap while I wait for my general factotum to report for duty. I’m very glad we met, Mrs. Bryce. You’re the answer to my prayers.”

  He took her hand and bowed over it, which would have been a fine, if somewhat theatrical, gesture.

  The damned man smiled, though, not extravagantly, mostly with a pair of dark brown eyes. He gazed down at Matilda as if they shared some delightful secret, and that was ludicrous.

  “I’ll get the maid started on your bathwater,” she said. “By the time you’ve had your nap, we should have enough heated in the laundry to accommodate you.”

  She withdrew quickly and took her secrets—not a one of which was delightful—with her.

  * * *

  “I’m not sure I understand, my lord.” Cherbourne’s brows were knit in puzzlement, though Ashton’s valet was a bright man. He was conversant in six languages that Ashton knew of, as well as the deferential-servant dialect of the King’s English. His attire was the pattern card of a proper gentleman’s gentleman, and his graying fringe of hair was precisely trimmed every seven days.

  Ashton had inherited him from Ewan, and in some ways, Cherbourne was a worse curse than the title.

  “The idea is simple,” Ashton said. “I’ll not be staying here for at least two weeks. Set up the rooms with my needs in mind, get to know the neighboring households, find us the best chophouses and coffee shops. I’ll come by periodically when I need the horses or to collect my mail.”

  “But, my lord, who will starch your cravats? Who will polish your boots? Who will shave you?”

  Helen, braids tucked under her cap, sat on one of the many trunks stacked in the middle of the airy parlor and watched this exchange as if it were a panto down at the market.

  “Cherbourne, I value your services, but please recall that for most of my adult life nobody starched my cravats, I polished my boots, and I even managed to shave myself occasionally. You are to have a holiday.”

  And so am I.

  The valet looked around as if Ashton were about to abandon him to the stink of Newgate jail rather than to twenty-foot plaster ceilings, enormous sparkling windows, and imported furnishings.

  Ashton well knew that Cherbourne’s distress was not with a two-week holiday, but rather, over the more pressing question: What shall I tell your brother?

  “I’ll send Hector around at least once a day to see if you have messages for me,” Ashton said, for the girl needed to be kept out of trouble somehow. “I need time to reconnoiter before polite society starts gawking at me.”

  Cherbourne took out a handkerchief and mopped his brow. “I must in all honesty tell you, my lord, this is very irregular. You’ll have no one to brush off your coats, lay out your clothes, oversee the laundresses, trim your hair. I cannot like this idea at all.”

  Ashton loved the idea. Wished he’d thought of it three years ago when Ewan had dragged him south to make the acquaintance of Fat George and the sartorial thieves on Bond Street.

  “I’ll manage, but I’d appreciate it if you’d not inform my family of my decision.”

  Cherbourne took inordinate care refolding the handkerchief. “My lord, I would not presume to correspond with persons so far above my station.”

  Helen’s snort was worthy of a dowager duchess.

  “You would presume to correspond with my butler,” Ashton said, “who would have a word with the housekeeper, who might let something slip to the nurse
ry maid, who’d mention to Lady Alyssa that you’d sent word up from London that the earl was acting peculiar again. Every time I took you with me to see friends in Cumberland, you sent off more dispatches than Wellington on the eve of battle.”

  Cherbourne straightened his shoulders, though nothing would make him an impressive figure. He was a small, dapper, balding little mole of a man, right down to the squinty expression and buck teeth.

  “A gentleman’s gentleman is allowed proper concern for his employer,” Cherbourne replied. “I consider it part of my role to describe my experiences of the wider world to the staff not fortunate enough to travel. They share my concern for you, my lord.”

  “I’m an ungrateful wretch, is that it?” This discussion was overdue, and it should have been uncomfortable.

  Starched cravats were uncomfortable.

  “Your lordship is tired from the journey,” Cherbourne said. “London can be overwhelming, I know. Your brother took some while to adjust to the demands made upon a titled gentleman here in the capital, but I’m sure, in time, you too will move effortlessly among your peers.”

  For three years, Ashton had been Cherbourne’s work in progress, his Galatea, a block of stone to be fashioned into a titled paragon.

  Helen shot Ashton a look, as if he’d missed his lines.

  “Cherbourne, I will write you a glowing character, if that’s what you want. In London, you should have no trouble finding employment worthy of your skills. Here’s what I want: No more subtle laments, sermons, or scolds. I pay your salary, you give me your loyalty and your service. Me, not Ewan, not Lady Alyssa, not your cronies among the staff. You don’t tattle on me as if I’m a naughty underfootman. You don’t presume to criticize my need for a little privacy. You are the valet, I am the earl. Keep to your place or find another position.”

  Three years ago, Ashton could not have carried out the threats he was making.

  “I… but…”

  “Or I can write you a modest character, confirming dates of employment and competence only.”