The Handbook to Handling His Lordship

by Suzanne Enoch

  “I don’t trust anyone,” Haybury rumbled, pacing to the garden window and back again. “Least of all men who call themselves trustworthy.”

  “Well, short of going about bashing people for no good reason, I believe we must wait and see,” Diane put in, her gaze following her husband’s pacing. “Won’t we, Oliver?”

  “It isn’t up to us, now is it, Diane?” he countered, stopping in front of Emily.

  “Do you wish me to go? It would certainly make things easier for you.” She refused to cry. In the end, everyone would look out for his or her own best interest. That was simply the way of things, and she couldn’t blame them for it.

  “The heart of my life has decided that as much as she adores The Tantalus Club,” Lord Haybury said, before either Diane or Jenny could answer, “she has an even greater interest in protecting her employees.”

  “I stand by those who stand by me,” Diane amended. “I cannot tell you to stay or leave, Emily, because that’s your decision. All I can say is that you are welcome to stay.”

  She was welcome to stay. That was perhaps the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. Swallowing, she nodded. “I would like to stay. At least until I have a better idea what Westfall is up to, and what Ebberling knows.” She glanced over at Jenny and back to her untouched plate of breakfast. “As long as I may continue to earn my keep. I won’t sit about doing nothing and expect to be provided for.”

  “A great many titled men strive for that very thing,” the marquis put in, his half grin returning now that the denouement was finished with. “And women, for that matter.”

  “That is fairly close to the opposite of our policy here.” With a smile of her own, Diane nudged the edge of Emily’s plate. “Eat something. I think I shall go and greet our guests this morning. And you have more than earned your keep, Emily. I have no fear that you’ll continue to do so.”

  Lord and Lady Haybury left the breakfast room, but Jenny remained behind, seated at the table beside her. Emily wasn’t surprised that she now required supervision; if she was discovered now, she would be accused of murder. Whether she’d done it or not, the reputation of the club would be badly damaged, if not ruined. There were people who saw the Tantalus as a blight on Mayfair’s landscape, a scandalous den of iniquity in the middle of the blue bloods’ haven. Those people would welcome the excuse to see the club closed. She would not allow that to happen. She wasn’t the only desperate soul who’d found refuge here, after all.

  “Out of the blue Westfall admitted that he was hunting after you?” Jenny asked after a moment.

  Emily chewed and swallowed a slice of ham. “I tried to set him off balance by announcing that I knew he was a spy,” she admitted, feeling her cheeks heat as she spoke. It had definitely not been one of her brighter ideas, considering the consequences. But at least she knew for certain now that Ebberling was still looking for her.

  “How did he react to that, I wonder?”

  “He denied it at first, and then he wanted to know how I knew. Don’t worry, I only said that a friend of mine knows about such things.”

  Jenny nodded. “Whether you decide you trust him or not, I expect I’ll be keeping an eye on him, then.”

  That didn’t sound terribly friendly. “He’s suspected who I am for days,” she returned. “And he might easily have told Ebberling where to find me, or even have brought me to see him yesterday.” At that thought, a shiver ran through her again. However mad things had become, she only needed to think of that to know they could have been so much worse. “He didn’t. I have to give him credit for that.”

  “Perhaps so, but I have never been fond of giving someone my secrets,” Miss Martine commented. “It gives them far too much power over me.”

  “I’m not precisely worth blackmailing, Jenny.”

  “Ebberling is,” her friend returned flatly. “Which would make you the prize, or the pawn, depending on what you know or what Stokes—Westfall—tells the marquis you know.”

  Emily frowned. “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “My dear, a spy will do anything to accomplish his mission. And Wellington prized no spy higher than Nate Stokes.”

  The niggling uneasiness Jenny’s previous words had brought to life deepened. Emily knew what it meant; she would be wise to leave the Tantalus. To leave London, and even to flee England. She’d nearly done so three years ago. On the day she’d meant to book passage for the Americas, however, she’d seen that advertisement for young, educated women willing to work at a gentlemen’s wagering club. It had seemed a godsend, and it had been one. Until now, apparently.

  “I want to talk to Nathaniel before I decide,” she heard herself saying.

  “You will hear what he wants you to hear, Emily.” Jenny pushed away from the table and stood. “What reason in the world would he have to keep your secret? The man who hired him is a fellow lord, one with wealth and influence. You leave him the choice of either announcing his failure to find you, or to confront one of his peers with only a Tantalus girl to support his accusations. Be logical.”

  “I…” She trailed off. For the past ten years she’d let logic rule her life. It had seen her to a good education, a good position, and then to what she’d thought was safety. It made no sense to abandon it now. Jenny was absolutely correct. She had nothing to offer Nate Stokes, and even less to offer the Earl of Westfall. She was a Tantalus girl, an accused thief and murderer.

  And she still wanted to talk to Nathaniel before she fled.

  “I will consider what you’ve said,” she stated aloud.

  “Good. Come along. I’ll see you to your room.”

  Even though no one had ever come out and directly said that Genevieve Martine had also been a spy, Emily knew it with as much certainty as she knew anything. So whether Jenny’s company was meant to protect her or to protect the Tantalus, she welcomed it.

  In her room she closed and latched the door, then knelt to reach under her bed for the nondescript portmanteau she kept there. Inside was a small amount of money, some clean clothes, and several faux reference papers. She pulled them out, looking through them. In America she could be Jane Halifax or Mary Nexton; both girls had good references from very upright, prominent families of her creation. Isobel McQueen wouldn’t do; that was her favorite invented name, but Isobel sounded too Scottish. Prominent families in America wouldn’t hire someone who sounded like she’d come directly from the Highlands.

  With a sigh she returned the papers to their place and added another twenty pounds to her funds. Then she pushed the bag back under the bed. Not yet. Not until she spoke to Nate one more time. Because whatever logic told her, she did trust Nathaniel Stokes. And deeper than that, she wanted to see him again. Not at his convenience, however. It was past time she took the reins to her own destiny.

  * * *

  Indoor plants were one of the most clever inventions in the world, Nate decided as he carefully tipped most of the contents of his glass into the potted palm behind him.

  They were lovely things, giving a bit of greenery to a world of iron and fabrics and dead wood, and they had all that lovely dirt that could absorb dozens of glasses of liquor without giving away a single secret. As his tablemate looked at him again, Nate lowered the nearly empty glass from his mouth and grinned.

  “You are bamming me, Henning,” he drawled, sloshing a bit more liquid from the glass as he set it down a bit too emphatically. “No one is that lucky.”

  Francis Henning refilled both their glasses with the fine vodka Nate had requested from the helpful footman at White’s. Even the vapors were intoxicating, but on top of the fine lamb and kidney pie he’d dined on earlier, he was more sober than a judge. Not so Mr. Henning, but that was the idea, after all.

  “No, I swear it,” Henning returned with a chuckle. “Four matches in a row, and Ebberling had the winner in every one of them. At damned astronomical odds, too. The man walked away with two thousand quid, and the rest of us bloody paupers. My grandmama nearly peeled
my ears from my head, she shouted so loud when I had to tell her I’d lost my rent money for the month.”

  “Did anyone think Ebberling had … influenced the direction of the breeze, so to speak?” Nate pursued, spinning a penny with his fingers and then dumping half his glass again when the coin distracted his exceedingly drunken companion.

  “I thought he might have, but it would have cost him more to bribe the boxers to lose than he won in wagering on them who did win.” Henning scowled. “Or the other way around.”

  “I know what you meant.” And he also knew what it signified. Ebberling would have lost money overall, but the boost to his pride seemed to have been worth it. Everything he’d noticed about the Marquis of Ebberling bespoke his need to be admired, even if he had to make bribes to arrange it.

  For another hour he listened to tales of every nonesuch and rakehell and blackguard admired by Francis Henning, until he’d heard every rumor and supposed fact known about Peter Velton before and during his tenure as the Marquis of Ebberling. And Henning was only his latest source—in the past day he’d purchased more drinks and meals for his peers than he had in the previous two years.

  Whether it had been worth it or not, he wasn’t certain. But he did have confirmation that his instincts concerning Ebberling were precisely plumb. The man would go to any expense for the sake of his pride, and he detested losing. Embarrassing the marquis was a mortal sin, and was paid for in kind tenfold. Nathaniel wondered if the late Lady Ebberling had cuckolded him or had merely defeated her husband in a horse race or a wager over which of two birds would perch higher up in a tree. Any of those might have caused her death.

  When he’d finished with the genuinely amusing Henning he made his way back to Teryl House to change for the evening. “Welcome home, my lord,” Garvey intoned, taking his hat and gloves. “Master Laurence requested me to inform you that he—”

  “Nate, where the devil have you been?” his brother broke in, practically vaulting down the last twenty feet of staircase.

  “—wished to speak to you,” the butler finished.

  “Thank you, Garvey.”

  “Never mind that.” Laurence grabbed Nate by the arm and practically dragged him toward the stairs. “Where were you?” he repeated in a loud hiss.

  “Working.” He shook Laurie off his arm. “Did someone expire naked and bloody in the drawing room?”

  “What? No.”

  “Then simply say ‘Nate, I’d like to speak to you upstairs, if you don’t mind,’ and I swear that I’m very likely to follow you there on my own two feet.”

  Laurence stopped his scrambling ascent of the stairs and faced him. Taking a breath that visibly lifted and lowered his shoulders, he straightened. “Nate, I’d like to speak to you upstairs, if you don’t mind,” he enunciated

  “Oh, certainly. Lead the way.” Stifling a grin, Nathaniel gestured for Laurence to precede him.

  On the landing they turned not for the drawing room, but Nate’s private study. “You have a very odd sense of what a household emergency might be,” Laurie said over his shoulder. “A nude, murdered corpse? Christ, Nate, you’ll frighten the servants.”

  “I didn’t actually think that,” Nathaniel retorted, ignoring the fact that for a brief half a heartbeat, he had thought exactly that. “I was trying to keep you from fainting in excitement over whatever it is you’re up to.”

  “I’m not up to anything. And this is important.” He knocked at the study door, then shoved it open without waiting for a response.

  Ignoring for a moment that no one, including Laurie, was permitted inside his private study without his permission, Nathaniel followed his brother through the door. Then he stopped in his tracks.

  Emily Portsman sat behind his writing desk, her hands neatly folded on the smooth red mahogany surface.

  “See? Important.” Laurie folded his arms across his chest.

  Nathaniel barely noted him. All his attention was on the slender young lady with the rich chestnut hair currently gazing at him with eyes the color of purest chocolate. The knot of something hard and cold and unsettled that had been roosting in his chest all day broke loose and vanished. “Laurie, go away,” he said, not shifting his gaze from her face.

  “What? I—”

  “Out.”

  “Well, that’s a fine thank-you.”

  “Thank you. Out. Bring tea.”

  His brother seemed to deflate. “Fine. Two cups only, though, because no one else knows she’s here,” he said, whispering the last bit. “And you’re welcome.”

  Once the door closed behind him, Nathaniel reached back and locked it. “Hello,” he said.

  “Your brother knows about me.” Her voice was oddly flat. She was angry, he realized.

  “He’s my brother. I trust him.” Grabbing one of the reading chairs from beneath the window, he twisted it around to face her and sat down in it.

  “He’s not my brother, and I don’t trust him. He’s just a child, for heaven’s sake.”

  “He’s only five years younger than you are. And he’s known what I am since the beginning, and has never breathed a word about it to anyone. Your secret is safe with him.” He leaned forward, setting both hands flat on the writing table between them. “Now what’s amiss?”

  “Ebberling had breakfast at the Tantalus this morning.”

  Damnation. Something heated and dark wrenched to life in his gut. He reached out to grip her folded hands. “Did he see you?”

  Portsman shook her head. “No. Lord and Lady Haybury saw him first and warned me away. They thought you might have sent him there. Haybury wanted to shoot you.”

  Nathaniel narrowed his eyes. “So they know about me. It seems both of us are spilling secrets every which way.”

  “I trust them.”

  Her expression was defiant, daring him to question her despite the fact that she’d just done the same thing to him. Rather than turn this meeting into a wrestling match over whose friends and family were more trustworthy, he inclined his head. There were other questions he had for her. “Very well. Is it Haybury who knew I was a spy, then?”

  “No. And I’m not telling you who it was.”

  “Ah. Because you trust this person, too?”

  “Yes. Now, th—”

  “With my life?” he interrupted. “And my brother’s life?”

  “You were Nate Stokes, spy. Is there any other spy who doesn’t know who you are?”

  “I was not Nate Stokes, spy,” he grated, tightening his grip on her hands. “For God’s sake, Portsman. Wellington knew that, and my direct superiors. And me, of course. There were times I had to remind myself that that was my name. To the world at large I was Nate Stokes, wastrel and gaddabout with the lack of common sense and patriotism to go abroad during a war and look for nice, fat old books to purchase and study. To sundry and various people of interest to England I was John Cobbins, Adam Genning, Heathrow Parks, Mohammed Ziffari, and so many damned others I just wanted to forget after I shed their skin.

  “I had scars and beards and accents and languages and gray hair or black hair or blond hair and names and stinks and fat and gristle that I put on and took off every other week, every other hour, sometimes,” he went on in a torrent of words that he wanted to stop but couldn’t, “and I still wake up every morning and have to lie there and try to remember who I am today. That is who I was. Am.”

  So bloody much for keeping his own secrets from her. He’d blurted them out like a schoolboy with his first whore. Glaring at her, breathing hard, he shoved her hands away and slammed to his feet. He needed some damned air.

  As he stalked to the window and pushed it open he flung his spectacles onto the floor behind him. He hated the damned things, sometimes, as much as he felt like he needed them. Nate Stokes. They told him he was Nate Stokes, and he needed to remember that, now. Whoever he truly was, the world had come to know him as absentminded, bumbling Nate Stokes, accidental Earl of Westfall. And so he was.

  Supposed
ly confession was good for the soul. It left one feeling lighter and freer or some such nonsense. Mostly what he felt as he breathed in the air of his garden, spiced roses mixed with the smell of horsehit from the stables and the city beyond, was fear. He’d told her everything. And now his life was literally in her hands. Why? Why would he do that?

  Part of him wanted to answer that it was because he was tired of living twenty different lives and of never knowing which one was actually him. The other part was shouting that he’d spoken because he trusted her—which was idiotic because he didn’t even know who she was. She’d said she hadn’t killed anyone, but Rachel Newbury was as much her real name as Emily Portsman was.

  He heard her stand up, but he stayed where he was. The next sound would be her opening the study door, and then he would have to decide—not whether to turn her over to Ebberling, but whether he could let her leave at all, knowing what she did. It wasn’t just about his life, but Laurie’s, as well. There were men who wanted Nate dead. Or rather, there were men who wanted Heathrow Parks and the others dead, and now she knew that all of them were him.

  A hand touched his back. A second hand joined it, and both together moved around to circle his chest. Her cheek pressed lightly against his shoulder.

  “Eloise Smorkley,” she whispered. “My mother was a washerwoman, and my father was a poacher. I ran away when I was twelve because I knew I would end up as some gentleman’s fancy girl at best, and an alleyway whore at worst. I lied and stole my way into finishing school, and because I was pretty and witty I got away with it. The governess position at Ebberling Manor was my first. And then I saw him kill her, and it was my last.”

  He stood unmoving, listening, his hands braced against the windowsill and her arms quietly around him. All the power he’d given her, and she was giving it back to him. Not because she was angry and couldn’t stop her tongue from wagging, but because she chose to do so.