The Handbook to Handling His Lordship

by Suzanne Enoch

  “Nate, your hair’s on fire.”

  He blinked, looking across the table to see Laurence eyeing him. “My apologies. I was thinking.”

  “You looked sad.”

  “I’m never sad. Sad isn’t logical,” he said absently, and bent over the table to line up his shot. The balls cracked against each other, rolling smoothly across the green velvet covering of the table. He wasn’t sad; sad meant that he regretted what he’d made of his life. And he’d done well, not just for himself, but for England. Wellington had told him so, invited him to dinner at Welsley House and thanked him personally for his services. He would never have a medal or a shiny button on a uniform, but he’d done his duty. And he’d done it well.

  “So which chit were you visiting?” his brother pursued, taking his own shot and then cursing. “The pretty, brown-eyed one from the Tantalus? Emily Portsman?”

  Nate straightened. “Don’t talk about her.”

  Laurence’s expression hardened, the old familiar scowl furrowing his brow. “That’s where we are again, then?” he snapped. “I do you a favor or two and then I’m useless again?”

  For a long moment Nathaniel looked at his brother. Ten years separated them, too much for them to have been friends as children. And if he didn’t take care, he would lose that chance now that they were both grown. He took a breath. “If there is one man in this entire world that I trust, Laurie, it’s you,” he said quietly, then had to stop when Garvey knocked at the door to bring in their dinner.

  Once they were alone again he gestured for his brother to sit at the small writing table, and took the seat opposite him. Two plates of roast duck in orange sauce, a pile of onions and carrots and leeks surrounding them, covered the entire surface. Trust. Trust was the most difficult thing in the world, because it meant making a decision.

  “I found Rachel Newbury,” he continued, nodding when Laurie lifted a bottle.

  “You did? Where is she? Have you turned her over to Ebberling? George never said anything, but—”

  “I don’t think she killed Lady Ebberling,” he interrupted, taking a swallow of the deep red wine.

  Laurie was nodding. “I’m not convinced of that, either. It’s odd, but from what I read of your notes, everyone seems to tell the exact same story. Even George. It’s too perfect.”

  “Good for you,” Nate said, covering his own uneasiness at the thought that his younger brother had the instincts of a good spy. Never. That could never be allowed to happen. “I had the same thought. The problem is, I agreed to do a job.”

  “Return the blunt. It’s not as if you need it.”

  “And what would Lord Ebberling think if I did that? It’s a bit too early to admit defeat, and even if he did accept that I failed, he might well just turn around and hire someone else.” Someone who wouldn’t care if Portsman had done what she’d been accused of. Someone who would drag her away from the small, safe life she’d made for herself and turn her over to a likely murderer.

  “Then we turn Ebberling in. Give him to the Old Bailey or Bow Street or whoever takes care of men who murder their own wives.”

  “And for proof we give them … what?”

  “Rachel Newbury’s word.”

  “All we know for certain is that she’s an accused murderess. Is she Ebberling’s scapegoat, or did she see something? And why would anyone take her word over that of a marquis? She’s been in hiding for three years, while he’s been peacefully raising his son and planning another marriage.”

  Laurence frowned as he devoured his duck. The conundrum hadn’t stolen his appetite, anyway—but then he was nineteen. Nothing stole his appetite. “Then what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  That made his brother choke, though Nate was fairly certain it was only for show. “You don’t know? I’ve never heard you say that before.”

  “I don’t make a habit of it. I need some time to figure things out.”

  “And you can do that in bed with Emily Ports…” Laurie’s eyes widened. “It’s her, isn’t it? She’s Miss Newbury! But how did you—when did—”

  “Keep your damned voice down,” Nathaniel hissed. “I trust you, but that’s where it ends.”

  “But—”

  “I suspected when she invited me upstairs after you blurted out that bit about me looking for someone. That didn’t make her Rachel Newbury, but it did make me think she knew someone or was someone in hiding. From there it wasn’t that difficult to figure out.” That wasn’t strictly true, but the hows and wherefores didn’t signify. “She admitted it to me today.”

  “Did she say that Ebberling killed his own wife?”

  “Not directly. She doesn’t trust me.”

  That made his brother snort. “Can’t imagine why. You being so warm and romantic and gallant.”

  That made Nate pause. He wasn’t any of those things. They’d been leached out of him years ago. But when he was in Portsman’s company he remembered them. At times he could almost taste them again. Perhaps that was why he wanted to do nothing so much as throw Ebberling’s blunt back in his smug face. It seemed a very poor reason, but he couldn’t quite let go of it. Or of her. Not yet.

  “Regardless, I need more information before I can act, in whichever direction I decide to go. And you need to never mention Emily Portsman’s name in the hearing of either young George or his father. I don’t want Ebberling’s gaze turning in her direction.”

  “Easy enough. George hasn’t asked me about The Tantalus Club. I don’t think boys of eight are overly concerned with Tantalus girls.”

  At that Nate cracked a smile. “You would have been, if there’d been such a thing when you were that age.”

  “I was always wise beyond my years.” Laurie ducked his head. “And I wanted to be you.”

  It was said almost shyly, and indeed Laurence blushed as though he regretted speaking the words the moment he’d said them. Considering the number of times Nate had verbally slapped him down for saying such a thing, it made sense. “The me back when you were eight was very stupid and foolish. You are neither of those things. And I intend to see that you have better choices and opportunities than I did.”

  “And I thank you for that, Nate. Truly.” Laurie stirred at his vegetables. “I’ll go back to Oxford when I’m permitted, and I’ll make up my exams and whichever papers I’ve missed. But let me help you with this, first. Please.”

  “One way or another, a woman was murdered, and someone did it. This will be dangerous.” Their mother would be whirling in her grave to hear him even considering putting her baby in harm’s way, but as Nate had been realizing over the past fortnight or so, Laurence Michael Stokes wasn’t a baby any longer. He was a young man, with the makings of a better gentleman than his older brother. “You realize that, yes?”

  “Yes, I do. I still want to help you. You’re my brother.”

  Nathaniel sighed. “And I apologize for that. Very well. I have a few tasks in mind for you. And you should meet Emily Portsman again. Perhaps she’ll trust you more than she trusts me.”

  And for the moment he attempted to ignore the way that merely speaking those words, meant half in jest or not, made him jealous. What he couldn’t ignore was the fact that he meant to help her, meant to save her, meant to enable her to live a life she seemed to long for—and had longed for, years before she ever took employment with Lord and Lady Ebberling.

  Chapter Ten

  Emily hadn’t slept for a moment last night. Instead she’d sat looking out her small window while Lily snored delicately in the second bed behind her, and she’d considered her very limited options.

  Westfall—Nate, because that fit him better in her thoughts, whatever she’d told him that she meant to call him—had asked her not to flee. That wasn’t the reason that when dawn came she still sat in her chair within the walls of The Tantalus Club, of course. She remained because she still felt safe there, and because a flight without a plan had never served her well.

&n
bsp; At the least she meant to ask Lord Haybury to assist her in withdrawing a large sum from her account at the Bank of England, and to have his man write up a paper enabling her to do so on her own from elsewhere in the country. The marquis had seemed to understand her reluctance to leave the grounds even to open an account and so he’d done it for her, but he wouldn’t be fleeing with her. If she left.

  The only thing she’d decided, actually, was that she needed to speak to Diane and Jenny. She’d made them a promise, and it was past time she kept it.

  “Have you been sitting there all night?” Lily asked sleepily, when Jenny knocked at their door to announce time for the morning shift to rise.

  “No,” Emily lied. “I only woke a short while ago.”

  The pretty daughter of a high-ranking member of the Church and a baron’s daughter, Lily Banks had come to the club only a few months ago. With her quiet smiles and warm wit Emily had liked her immediately, and had decided that sharing a room with the petite, black-haired girl would be much preferable to taking on Lucille Hampton and her ceaseless prattling.

  When Sophia White, the unacknowledged daughter of the Duke of Hennessy and his wife’s maid, had come to the Tantalus even before it had opened its doors, London had been scandalized. Now that sweet Sophia had married the Duke of Greaves, though, every young lady born on the wrong side of the blanket to a lord or a diplomat or a member of the clergy or a high-ranking officer had been appearing at the back door of the club.

  Not all of them were allowed entry, either. As sympathetic as Diane was to their varying plights, the Tantalus came first. If they weren’t able to read and write, if they didn’t have pleasant conversation or a brain between their ears, if they weren’t young and pretty, if they couldn’t at least cook or mend clothes, they couldn’t become Tantalus girls.

  She herself had been at least as fortunate as Lily, because she’d come to the Tantalus when it had still been an idea. Diane, Lady Cameron, had been hiring desperate young women, and had asked the scandalous and devilishly handsome Lord Haybury to teach them what he knew of wagering. Adam House had been full of men doing construction, tearing down the entire interior at the front of the huge old mansion to turn the morning room into a gaming room, to make the dining room into a dining hall fit for half a hundred lords.

  It had been chaos, and when Emily had refused to supply the name of her previous employer she’d been certain that Diane would turn her away. Instead Diane had only asked her to make one promise, and she’d done so. And now it was time to keep her word.

  She left Lily dressing for her morning shift in the main gaming room, and went to find Jenny. Genevieve Martine had returned from the Continent with Diane, and the two ladies had been friends since childhood. Whatever one of them knew, the other soon learned, though she suspected that Jenny hadn’t been telling Diane everything where Emily was concerned.

  Luckily or not, she found both women together with Diane’s husband Lord Haybury in the private hallway opening out into all the club’s rooms on the east side of the building. They were speaking in low voices to each other, and none of them looked pleased. Even the characteristic cynical glint in Haybury’s eyes was missing.

  When Diane caught sight of her approaching, the marchioness broke away from the other two. “Emily,” she said in an even quieter voice than they normally used in the private hallway. “I was just about to send for you.”

  “What’s happened?” Her first thought, as always when something upended the club, was that Lord Ebberling had arrived at the front door to have her arrested or dragged away somewhere. Her second thought was that something ill had happened to Westfall, and that thought bothered her far more than it should have. After all, he knew. And that made him trouble.

  “Lord Hemfell brought a guest with him to breakfast this morning,” Diane returned, as Jenny and Haybury joined them. “It’s—”

  “It’s Ebberling,” Emily finished for her. Ice slammed down her spine, but she kept her feet. Only a thin, unlocked door separated her from Peter Velton, the Marquis of Ebberling. But if he was having breakfast, he didn’t know she was there. She repeated that to herself with every heartbeat, making it a kind of prayer. He didn’t know she was there. Did he?

  What if she’d been wrong about Nate? What if he’d told her not to flee only so he could ride off and inform Ebberling where to find her? No, he wouldn’t do such a thing. She’d looked into his eyes, and even if he were the world’s best liar, a professional spy of great skill, she would have seen something if he meant to betray her. All she could see when she imagined his face and his voice, though, was that slight, sensuous smile and the feeling of hope when he’d told her to stay at the club. No. Ebberling didn’t know she was there. He didn’t.

  “We seem to be the only ones who know we should be wary,” Haybury put in, “and you haven’t fainted, which is good.”

  “Not yet, anyway,” she said, managing a brief smile. “I need to speak to the three of you, though. Now, more than ever.”

  With a nod, Diane gestured her toward the far doorway that led back to the employees’ area of the club and the private Adam House beyond. “We were about to sit down for breakfast when Grace sent word that Ebberling had come by. Join us.”

  Emily didn’t know how much of an appetite she could muster, but she appreciated the invitation. Once they knew how much trouble she might be bringing to their doorstep, it could be the last meal she ever ate under the roof of The Tantalus Club. “Thank you.”

  It had always amazed her that as busy as the front of Adam House was, with its gaming and dining rooms, the rear part of the house could remain so calm and peaceful. Lord and Lady Haybury resided there almost year round, though she knew that Haybury Park in Devon was said to be one of the most splendid country homes in England. Jenny Martine also had her own private rooms there on the uppermost floor. All the rest of The Tantalus Club staff, with the exception of the grooms who lived above the stables, resided on the third floor above the club.

  Today Adam House seemed almost too quiet, as if the house was holding its breath and waiting for her to begin burning down the curtains. That was nonsense, though; she would leave before she brought harm to this house and anyone who lived within it. If nothing else, she owed them peace.

  “What did you want to tell us?” Diane asked as they selected breakfast from a sideboard and sat around the small breakfast table.

  Emily took a slow breath that shook at the edges. “I promised you that if my past troubles became my present troubles, I would tell you.”

  The marchioness nodded. “You told us you wished to avoid Ebberling.”

  “I used to be employed in his household, as a governess to his son, George.” Emily kept her gaze on the uneaten ham slices decorating her plate. “As Rachel Newbury. The … I … He’s been looking for me for the past three years. He accuses me of murdering Lady Ebberling. I did no such thing, but that won’t matter if he learns I’m here. The authorities will come, there will be arrests, and you could be accused of harboring me here.”

  “Then he’d best not find out you’re here,” Diane said after a moment, taking a sip of her tea.

  They knew, Emily realized, her heart stammering. They already knew who she was. She sent a glance at Jenny, to find Miss Martine salting her boiled eggs. “But I never told you who I was, or where I came from,” she blurted.

  “You said you’d served as a governess,” her employer returned in her mild voice. “Once you gave us Ebberling’s name and we realized how determined you were to evade him, it wasn’t difficult to piece the rest together, my dear.”

  “But what if I’d done it? What he says I did?”

  “You just said you didn’t.” This time it was Haybury answering her. “And not to offend, but you didn’t react like a murderer when you heard the news that Ebberling was in London.”

  She nearly asked him how a murderer would have reacted to the news, but then decided she didn’t want them to examine the facts that
closely. If they changed their minds about her innocence, she likely wouldn’t have a chance to flee. Instead she took a sip of squeezed orange juice, wishing it was whisky. “Lord Westfall knows who I am, too. Ebberling hired him to find me.”

  That made Haybury frown. “Westfall? I’m surprised he remembers to tie his cravat.”

  “Don’t be fooled by Westfall,” Jenny put in, speaking for the first time. “He is not what he seems. Or rather, he is more than he seems.”

  And even more than that, Emily added silently. How much more, and what it meant, she had no idea. She both anticipated and dreaded learning the answer to those questions.

  “More, how?” the marquis demanded, no humor at all in his light gray eyes.

  “We all have our secrets, Haybury,” Jenny said in her faint French accent. “His is … similar to mine.”

  “Sim—” Haybury cursed. “I’m supposed to be the biggest scoundrel under this roof,” he stated, scowling. “You people need to stop sneaking out from the woodwork.”

  “You can fight over who is the naughtiest later,” Diane broke in, reaching across the table to squeeze Emily’s fingers. “But I would win. What I want to know is when you learned about Westfall’s dealings with Ebberling, and what we need to do about him.”

  “I suspected Nathaniel shortly after I met him.” Emily met Diane’s green-eyed gaze, waiting to see the censure and disapproval there that she felt, herself. She’d been so stupid, tempting fate by insisting on knowing Westfall’s business. If she’d kept her distance, he might never have known who she was. He’d as much as said so, himself. But he was like a flame, and she a very light-starved moth. “But yesterday he told me.”

  “Is that why Ebberling’s here?” Haybury rose. “If Bow Street is on its way, you need to go, and I need to throw some guests out on their arses.”

  That made tears well up in Emily’s eyes. These people had known nothing about her three years ago, and even now when she hadn’t told them much of anything, they still stood up for her. The family she’d found after what felt like a lifetime of looking. And now she risked losing them. “Lord Westfall said that he wouldn’t turn me over to Ebberling. He said I could trust him. I would like to, but that would mean all of you trusting him, as well. I didn’t think that was right. That’s why I wanted to talk to you this morning.”