Mad About the Earl

by Christina Brooke

  Jacqueline wrinkled her nose. “Horses are noble, sensitive beasts. They should not be groomed for show and made to perform tricks.” With a sidelong look at Rosamund, she added, “Speaking of grooming, my brother is very nearly resplendent these days. What a change you’ve wrought in him, Rosamund.”

  Rosamund paused in her work. Could Jacqueline possibly mean to liken Griffin to the horses at Astley’s?

  “I believe Griffin likes his new clothes,” she said mildly. “I am sure he would let us all know about it if he did not.”

  With a slight, skeptical smile, Jacqueline turned her head and stared out the window again, as if the topic of conversation was no longer of interest to her.

  Needled and uncomfortably conscious that there might be some spark of truth in what Jacqueline implied, Rosamund changed the subject. “I hear Mr. Maddox prepares for a sojourn in Town.”

  “Do you, indeed? I wouldn’t know. I am not allowed to see him, and he is foolish enough to insist on abiding by Griffin’s wishes, even if I couldn’t give a fig about them.”

  But Rosamund caught the light that entered Jacqueline’s eyes at the mention of her so-called friend following them to London.

  “I tried to persuade Griffin to relent, you know,” said Rosamund. “But he is adamant. What does he have against Mr. Maddox courting you? Do you know? I thought they were friends.”

  “Courting me? Tony? Don’t be ridiculous, Rosie.” An inelegant snort of a laugh issued from Jacqueline over that. “Tony is not a marrying man.”

  Rosamund stared. Could Jacqueline truly be so innocent? So oblivious?

  She bit her lip. If Griffin wanted Jacqueline to marry someone on this infamous list of suitors, it was not for Rosamund to put ideas into the girl’s head about Mr. Anthony Maddox.

  “Would you not like to be married, Jacqueline?” she asked, watching the girl closely.

  Jacqueline’s face froze, just for an instant. Then she said, “I never thought about it much until you came here.” She laughed softly. “I barely remember my own mother. I am not at all sure what a wife is supposed to do.” She tilted her head. “You must wonder why I never took charge of the household here, made it more habitable.”

  “The thought hadn’t occurred to me,” said Rosamund. And it hadn’t. Why hadn’t it? Perhaps because she’d been so full of her own plans for Pendon Place?

  “I didn’t do it because I preferred to take charge of the stables instead. Humans can live with a bit of dust. Horses cannot fend for themselves, can they?” She hugged her knees tighter. “But I also knew that if I worked my fingers to the bone to make us comfortable here, I would end up a frustrated, angry shrew of a female and Griffin would have no incentive to change his reclusive ways.”

  Rosamund thought about that. “Your plan did not precisely work, though, did it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Jacqueline’s grin flashed out. “He married you, didn’t he?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Rosamund arrived at Griffin’s town house travel-weary but in hopeful spirits.

  After she’d greeted the staff, Rosamund entered the hall and looked about her. “Oh, yes, this is most handsome indeed!”

  Unlike Pendon Place, Griffin’s Mayfair home appeared to be an exceedingly well-run establishment. With notice of the family’s arrival and the time and authority to hire extra servants, the retainers of this house had done their master proud.

  Every surface had been swept, dusted, polished, waxed, and shined. Scents of honey and lavender pervaded the air. The carpets were handsome, the rooms well-appointed and tastefully furnished. Now, this was more like it!

  Receiving Rosamund’s compliments with a beam of delight, the housekeeper took her up to her bedchamber, leaving Jacqueline to trail behind.

  When Mrs. Minchin had taken herself off to order the tea tray, Rosamund turned to Jacqueline. “Tomorrow, we shall collect my cousin, Lady Cecily, and shop until we fall into dead faints of exhaustion.”

  Laughing at Jacqueline’s expression of horror, Rosamund unpinned her bonnet and took off her pelisse. In a habitual gesture, she felt for her locket, but it wasn’t there.

  Dismay shot through her. “My locket. I’ve lost my locket!”

  “Oh, no!” said Jacqueline. “Perhaps it dropped on the floor.”

  While Jacqueline got down to her hands and knees, Rosamund picked up her pelisse and shook it out, but nothing fell from its folds.

  “I can’t see it anywhere,” said Jacqueline.

  “I must find it,” Rosamund said. “I simply must find it!”

  She could not bear it if she lost that locket, not with Griffin’s image inside. With tears filling her eyes, she left the bedchamber and retraced her steps, while Jacqueline directed someone to go and search the coach. Meg and Mrs. Minchin joined the search. They were all scrabbling about on hands and knees in the great hall when Griffin strode in.

  “What’s all this?” he said.

  “It’s Rosamund’s locket. She has lost it,” said Jacqueline.

  Rosamund scarcely heard the exchange. “It must be here! Griffin, help us look.”

  There was a long, drawn-out pause. So long, in fact, that she looked up from what she was doing. “What’s the m—?” Oh. She’d forgotten her necklace had been such a source of contention between them.

  Anger burned in Griffin’s eyes, but when he spoke, it was in a controlled tone. “I have business to attend to. Excuse me.”

  Rosamund gazed after him helplessly. He was angry. She ought to have known better than to think she’d put his jealousy over Lauderdale to rest.

  Then she realized Jacqueline was talking to her.

  She frowned. “I beg your pardon. What was it you said?”

  “Do you remember putting it on this morning?” Jacqueline repeated.

  Slowly, Rosamund shook her head. That’s right. They’d had an early start. She had been half-asleep as she’d dressed at the inn. “No. But then I don’t remember taking it off, either. In fact, I am almost sure I did not have it on the journey at all, because the day before, I wore my crucifix.”

  “So perhaps the locket didn’t even leave Pendon Place?” said Jacqueline.

  “That doesn’t make sense. If I wasn’t wearing it when we left, I’d have packed it in my jewel box.” She turned her head. “Meg? Will you bring my jewel box, please?”

  The maid hurried to comply. With feverish fingers, Rosamund rifled through the dainty velvet-lined drawers and compartments, but the locket was not inside.

  “I shall write to Mrs. Faithful and request her to mount a search.” She itched to fly home to Pendon Place to look for the locket herself, but that was silly. And besides, Griffin would never understand.

  Well, that would serve her right for not telling him what was in the infernal locket in the first place, wouldn’t it?

  Thanking the staff for their efforts, Rosamund went to find her sulky bear.

  “I have been thinking,” she said, when she found him in his lair, “that we ought to give a party to launch Jacqueline in society.”

  “As long as I do not have to attend any blasted balls, you may do whatever you choose.” He didn’t look at her, but she sensed the tension that vibrated within him. She ought to have been more circumspect, more considerate of his feelings, but she’d been frantic about her locket.

  She was still frantic, in fact. But now she’d regained sufficient control not to show it.

  “So,” she said softly, rounding the desk. “My big old bear will not dance for me at all?”

  She trailed her fingertips over his shoulder, but instead of responding as he normally would, he took her hand in a firm clasp. His grip, she suspected, was not one of affection but designed to stop her trying to seduce him into a better frame of mind.

  Had that become her sole strategy when dealing with him? She felt chastened at the thought.

  She placed her other hand over his. “Why do you not like balls? You were presented by your grandfather upon y
our majority, were you not? You must have learned to dance and attended such entertainments then.”

  He looked at her for a moment. Then he said, “Oh, I have danced to your tune quite enough, I think, my lady. No balls. No dancing. That is my final word on it.”

  * * *

  Contrary to her own predictions, Jacqueline enjoyed their shopping spree. She and Cecily, while polar opposites in fashion sense, were kindred spirits beneath the skin. Soon, Cecily had persuaded Jacqueline of the manifold benefits of being “out” in society.

  “I envy you exceedingly!” said Cecily. “The duke is so stuffy, he refused to let me come out until I had grown a particle of common sense. Can you believe it?”

  “I am surprised he is letting you make your debut next spring, then, Cecily,” murmured Rosamund.

  Jacqueline protested hotly in defense of her new friend, but Cecily broke into a peal of laughter. “No, no, she is quite right. The family lives in terror that I shall set the ton by the ears, and they are right of course, poor dears. I shall run amok. In the most genteel way possible, of course.”

  Cecily’s plans to take the ton by storm lost nothing in the telling. By the end of her recital, even Jacqueline began to see how she might enjoy her own season.

  By means of cajolery, persuasion, and outright coercion, they succeeded in ordering Jacqueline enough gowns and fripperies to complete her scant wardrobe.

  Jacqueline’s particular favorite was a cherry red riding habit that brought out her eyes and contrasted beautifully with her black hair.

  “When you can look like that, why would you ever ride astride again?” murmured Rosamund into her ear.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Cecily seriously. “We have been warned, have we not, about the danger in burning one’s breeches?”

  Jacqueline snorted a laugh at the bad pun. Rosamund rolled her eyes.

  It put her in mind of something, however. “I am afraid you will be cross with me, Cecily,” she said as they climbed into their carriage. “I have stolen Diccon from you.”

  “I had noticed he didn’t make the return journey,” said Cecily. “What have you done with him?”

  “Appointed him our butler at Pendon Place,” said Rosamund. “It was his life’s ambition, so you must be pleased for him.”

  Cecily sighed. “How tiresome of you. But I am happy for him. Besides, poor Diccon was starting to look a bit ragged around the edges after all our adventures.”

  “No doubt,” said Rosamund dryly. “And I don’t doubt you will soon beguile some other unfortunate into assisting you on your escapades.”

  “Escapades?” said Jacqueline.

  “Your escape from Bath was nothing to it,” said Rosamund with an absurd touch of pride in her wayward cousin.

  “Did I tell you about the time I almost got arrested?” said Cecily.

  “What?” Rosamund shrieked.

  Cecily settled back against the squabs with a smug smile. “I didn’t think so.”

  * * *

  The deVere ladies soon found that it did not take a party given by Rosamund to launch Jacqueline on the ton. Somehow, the matchmaking mamas of London had caught the scent of an heiress on the wind. They lost no time in tracking that scent to its source.

  Preeminent among these denizens of the ton was Lady Arden, who bestowed the signal honor upon them of inviting them to tea. Rosamund was well acquainted with her, due to her ladyship’s longstanding—what would one call it, friendship?—with the Duke of Montford.

  Lady Arden was the designated matchmaker for the Black family, and had successfully assisted Montford in bringing about Rosamund’s cousin Jane’s marriage to Constantine Black, Lord Roxdale, the previous year.

  Rosamund turned the list of suitors Lord deVere deemed acceptable over in her mind. With a little surprise, she recalled that not one of these had been a member of the Black clan.

  Ah, of course! There was a centuries-old feud between the families, was there not?

  Which made Lady Arden’s enthusiasm for Jacqueline even more interesting.

  Their hostess bent her clear-eyed gaze upon Jacqueline. “She is wholly unspoiled, is she not?”

  So, Lady Arden approved of Jacqueline despite the odd abruptness of the girl’s manners. Indeed, Rosamund suspected that her sister-in-law would need to take up prostitution or murder someone to rate any society matron’s disapproval. Her merest utterance was interpreted as wit, her occasional awkwardness dubbed a pleasing freshness and lack of pretension.

  She suspected Jacqueline’s path had been eased considerably by the news of the enormous dowry Griffin would set aside for her.

  For Jacqueline’s sake, Rosamund was glad. The girl paid no attention to the toadies who gushed over her. Even so, the warmth with which she was received by haughty women like Lady Arden could not help but add to her confidence.

  The door opened to admit another visitor.

  “Ah!” said Lady Arden. “There you are, my dear boy. Do come in.”

  Rosamund had her back to the door and so did not see who entered, but Jacqueline did. Her sister-in-law’s eyes widened, and she made a convulsive movement with her hands, as if she wished to stretch them out but couldn’t.

  The gentleman—for gentleman it was—rounded the sofa so that Rosamund could get a good look at him. “Mr. Maddox!” Rosamund said, rising to curtsy. “How delightful to see you here.”

  She said it quite as if she hadn’t scribbled a note to him recommending that he follow them to Town. Well, but she was surprised. She’d no notion he was acquainted with Lady Arden.

  Rosamund sent a glance toward Jacqueline, who hastily got up and bobbed a curtsy.

  Maddox had been smiling, but at the sight of Jacqueline, he froze.

  “A transformation, is it not?” said Rosamund softly.

  The gown Jacqueline wore was white muslin embroidered all over with violets. The deep, vibrant color of the flowers somehow made Jacqueline’s eyes appear blue rather than gray. Her hair had been cut and styled with a modish simplicity that was vastly becoming to her. A faint flush pinked her cheeks. She looked, Rosamund thought, very pretty indeed.

  In a moment, the spell that seemed to bind Maddox broke. He bowed to her and Jacqueline and moved forward to kiss Lady Arden’s cheek.

  “Do sit down, Anthony,” said Lady Arden. She smiled at them all impartially. “I believe you are acquainted?”

  “We are,” answered Maddox. “Or at least, we used to be.”

  A puzzled, hurt look crossed Jacqueline’s face. She glanced at Rosamund, as if for support. “It was not so long ago that we were friends, Mr. Maddox. I hope that, at least, has not altered.”

  The fortnight they’d spent in London allowing Jacqueline to slowly become accustomed to the ton had altered her appearance. It had also taught her a modicum of restraint. So when Rosamund smoothly interceded to speak of neutral topics, Jacqueline did not burst out with some ill-considered remark but instead, followed Rosamund’s lead.

  Half an hour passed in meaningless social chitchat. During that time, Rosamund was pleased to observe that Mr. Maddox could barely take his eyes from Jacqueline, though he appeared to listen and respond to all that was said. Jacqueline was subdued, and her face retained its flush. When Rosamund signaled it was time to take their leave, Jacqueline leaped up with a trifle more alacrity than politeness.

  As she stood to go, Rosamund said, “Mr. Maddox, I plan to give a ball in a fortnight. I trust you will still be in Town? I shall send you a card for it.”

  His brows drew together slightly. “Is that wise?”

  Rosamund smiled. “I’ll leave you to be the judge of that, Mr. Maddox.”

  When they were safely inside the carriage, Jacqueline put her hand on Rosamund’s arm. “Oh, Rosie, Griffin will kill you! A ball and Mr. Maddox! You do believe in taking the bull by the horns, don’t you?”

  “I daresay he’ll be in a towering rage when he finds out,” she agreed. And she did not think that this time it would cu
lminate in wild, vigorous lovemaking. “By then, it will be too late.”

  I can manage him, Tibby. Had she actually said those words? She wasn’t at all certain she could manage this. At least, not without resorting to underhanded means that were completely unworthy of a Westruther.

  But there had been that look in Maddox’s eyes when they rested on Jacqueline. Rosamund shivered, closing her eyes as the most blatant and painful longing welled inside her. Not for Maddox to look at her that way, of course. But oh, she wished Griffin would!

  Jacqueline said, “Did you think Tony had changed, Rosamund? He was so … guarded, so formal in his manners.”

  “You could hardly expect him to tease you the way he does at home,” said Rosamund. “Not in Lady Arden’s presence.”

  “Yes,” said Jacqueline, brightening a little. “That must be it.”

  Rosamund hesitated. Then she said, “Perhaps it is you who have altered. Perhaps the change was unwelcome to Mr. Maddox.”

  Jacqueline frowned. “What on earth do you mean? You said I look a thousand times prettier in my new clothes. Though I am no judge, I feel prettier in them.”

  “You were always a very attractive girl,” said Rosamund firmly. “The gowns and the hair merely show your looks to best advantage. I have a theory,” she added, “that Mr. Maddox was content for you to remain home at Pendon Place and never spread your wings. He had you all to himself then, didn’t he? Now he must compete with all the other young bucks vying for your favors.”

  “They only want my money,” said Jacqueline.

  “There are plenty of gentlemen among your admirers who do not give a fig about your money,” said Rosamund, and it was true. “As Mr. Maddox will discover when he comes to our ball.”

  Doubtful, Jacqueline said, “So this is all a ploy to make Tony jealous?” She wrinkled her nose a little in distaste.

  “Of course not. But it will show him how you are to be appreciated, my dear. I believe he cares for you a great deal, but he does tend to treat you as if you are another man on occasion. He will learn that he ought to have more care.”