by Gaelen Foley
Dev opened the neatly folded letter and read. As his gaze skimmed the page, the blood promptly drained from his face:
Express
9 February 1817
Bath
Dear Lord Strathmore,
Though we have never met, I trust you will forgive my presumption in writing to you on a matter of greatest urgency. Necessity compels me to set propriety aside to convey to you a most alarming intelligence.
My name is Miss Elizabeth Carlisle, and since August, I have been serving in the capacity of lady’s companion to your esteemed Aunt. It is my sorrowful duty to advise you of a change in the excellent health Her Ladyship has always heretofore enjoyed, and to implore you, if you love her, to come with all due haste…before it is too late.
Godspeed,
E. Carlisle
For a moment, Dev could only stand there, his face draining of color.
No. Not yet. She’s all I have left.
“My lord?” Charles ventured in a worried tone. “Is aught amiss?”
Without a word, Dev strode over, reached up, pulled the messenger down bodily from his horse, and swung up into the still-warm saddle.
“What the devil—!”
“Pay him, Charles. I’ll leave this brute in the stable at home. I must to Bath.” His voice sounded odd and tight in his ears. “I’ll take the curricle—it’s fastest.” He gathered the reins and wheeled the roan around, glancing over his shoulder. “Ben, follow with my things.”
“But, Devlin!” the blonde protested, poking her head out the carriage window in that ridiculous feathered hat.
He rolled his eyes, losing patience. “Would someone please take that woman home or wherever it is that she goes?”
She let out an angry gasp, but he was already gone, galloping off, hell-for-leather, down the drive, his stomach knotted with panicked dread and guilt for neglecting his only living kin. The despairing knowledge spiraled through his mind that when Aunt Augusta finally left him—never mind his vast inheritance—he would be left completely and unutterably alone.
CHAPTER
TWO
Bath, the next day
Translucent in the light, the delicate porcelain shard was as thin and fragile as a bit of some exotic eggshell as she held it up between her fingers, studying its shape. She tested it here and there on the half-mended vase until she found the spot where the little piece fit; dabbing the jagged edges with a few droplets from her tiny glue brush, she gently pressed the broken fragment back into place. Lizzie Carlisle sat very still, careful not to let her hand waver lest the piece set crookedly.
White winter sunshine streamed through the lace curtains, but the parlor smelled of springtime, of beeswax and lemons, with a graceful hint of lavender from the dried bouquet on the round worktable where she sat. The restful silence of her employer’s elegant country villa was broken only by the muffled voices from the next room, where Dr. Bell was quizzing the dowager on her latest symptoms.
Cautiously releasing her hold on the shattered vase, Lizzie glued another piece back into place and cast a skeptical glance upward at the culprit. Pasha, Lady Strathmore’s haughty Persian cat, lay luxuriously sprawled atop the Chippendale highboy, his fluffy tail swinging idly over the edge, his gold eyes gleaming with a distinct look of feline amusement at the hapless human whose job it was to smooth out all of life’s little disasters. If one of the maids had broken the small, elegant Wedgwood vase—a gift from Her Ladyship’s rakehell nephew—the servant would have been summarily sacked, but the dowager’s spoiled darling appeared not a whit repentant.
“You, sir, are a menace to society,” she told the cat with a pointed glance.
Pasha’s sable-tipped ears merely twitched with a knowing air.
Just then, the parlor doors swung open and Lizzie glanced over, flashing a quick, warm smile as the dowager and her doctor came in from the drawing room. Hastily setting her project aside, she rose to greet them.
Frail but regal, Augusta, the Dowager Viscountess Strathmore, sat her wheeled Bath chair like a throne as her handsome young doctor gallantly rolled her in. Her Ladyship still commanded a stately beauty, her wrinkled skin taut across her high cheekbones. Her blue eyes were rheumy, but as bright and shrewd as ever.
“Here we are, then.” Dr. Andrew Bell had a cherubic face, a tousle of blond hair, and big, brown, puppy-dog eyes. In the environs of Bath, he was considered a fine catch, quite making his fortune. He ran a thriving practice and had recently enhanced his medical reputation by inventing the wildly popular Dr. Bell’s New Pills for Bilious Complaints. Even the local vicar swore by them.
“So, Dr. Bell, how do you find your patient today?” Lizzie asked with cordial cheer. As an afterthought, she turned and put the lid back on the glue, with a suspicious glance at Pasha.
“Right as rain, I am happy to say,” he declared with an amiable smile.
“Told you so,” Lady Strathmore clipped out, brushing a few long cat hairs off her black bombazine skirts with an air of brisk nonchalance. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”
“And we are glad to know it,” he agreed, meeting Lizzie’s gaze with a twinkle in his eyes at old Ironsides’s curmudgeonly manner. “I vow it must be the excellent care that Miss Carlisle is taking of you that is to account for it, my lady.”
“Bosh,” Lizzie muttered, blushing slightly as she bustled over to poke the hearth fire back to life lest Lady Strathmore catch a chill.
Dr. Bell watched Lizzie with attentive interest; the dowager observed him with a narrow smile. “Won’t you stay for tea, dear boy?” she purred, then gestured to Lizzie to ring the bellpull.
She obeyed, even as Dr. Bell touched his hand to his heart with a fond wince. “I wish I could, ma’am. Alas, I must look in on the Harris children. The whole brood has come down with the measles.”
“Oh, dear. We shall add them to our prayers.” Lizzie turned to him, fretting at the news. When the weather was fine, their neighbor’s rambunctious children sometimes visited, bringing cheer and laughter into the house. “Do tell Mrs. Harris that if there is anything I can do to help, she need only ask.”
“How thoughtful you are, Miss Carlisle. I am sure she will appreciate your kind offer.” His gently admiring gaze was a little too intent for Lizzie’s comfort, but thankfully, Margaret, the maid, appeared just then in answer to the bell.
The skinny, sallow girl dropped a curtsy. “ ’Ow might I be of assignation, milady?” she asked proudly.
All three of them looked at the girl in bafflement for a second; then Lizzie winced with private chagrin at her pupil’s blunder.
“What a bizarre question.” The dowager turned to Lizzie, nonplussed. “Whatever does the silly creature mean? Assignation?”
“Ah, assistance, ma’am,” Lizzie soothed, coloring a bit. “She meant assistance.”
“Pardon my corrigendum, ma’am,” Margaret piped up, undaunted. “I seem to have misunderspoken myself.”
“Daft gel, have you been in the liquor?” Lady Strathmore demanded.
Margaret gasped. “No, ma’am! Never!”
“Then cease this gibberish at once and fetch our tea.”
Lizzie sent Margaret a bolstering look, but the crestfallen maid fled. “Really, my lady, one oughtn’t mock her. She is doing her best to learn.”
“I am well aware of your bluestocking proclivities, Miss Carlisle, but I will not have you ruining the lower servants with this nonsense of teaching them to read. You must desist. It can only come to no good.”
“But, ma’am—”
“Servants reading! Unnatural, I say. Really, child, you have the most extraordinary notions.”
“Margaret is surprisingly clever—”
“I prefer her ignorant, the way God intended her to be.”
Stifling a cough of laughter, Dr. Bell sent Lizzie a look of discreet congratulation for her efforts. “Pardon me, ladies, but I really should be going.”
“Of course, dear boy. We mustn’t keep you from
your very important work of ministering to the sick of the parish. Would you be so kind, Miss Carlisle, as to show Dr. Bell out, hmm?”
Mischief glinted in Lady Strathmore’s sharp blue eyes as she turned to her companion.
“Of course,” Lizzie answered faintly after the barest pause.
Curse the old girl’s deuced matchmaking.
Dr. Bell bowed to the dowager and wished her well, then gestured to Lizzie to lead the way.
“I say, the weather has cleared up nicely,” he attempted as they walked out to the spacious entrance hall with its light blue walls, white columns, and Italian marble floor. “Quite a bluster through the night.”
“Indeed.” The frigid gales and snow of the night before had cleared by afternoon.
“Perhaps we shall see an early spring,” he suggested.
“One can hope.” She forced a smile and looked around at nothing in particular, nervously rearranging the umbrellas in their stand beside the door. Dr. Bell buttoned up his neat blue coat. When Lizzie handed him his top hat, he held her in an earnest gaze for a moment.
“I should very much like to see you ladies at the next Assembly Ball, Miss Carlisle. It would lift Her Ladyship’s spirits—and mine.”
“Oh—!” Startled, Lizzie swiftly opted to ignore his cautious overture. “If she is well enough to venture out, I’m sure we shall try.”
“I will content myself with that hope, then.” He put on his hat. “If you need me,” he added softly, “send for me anytime.”
“I thank you, sir,” she said, stiffening slightly.
He tipped his hat, looking mystified but undiscouraged by her stubborn reticence. “Good day, Miss Carlisle.”
She bowed her head in answer; then he strode out to his waiting carriage, a handsome barouche drawn by a team of fine liver bays. Enjoying the bracing rush of chilly fresh air, Lizzie raised her hand in a courteous salute as he drove away.
As she lingered in the open doorway, her gaze swept the frozen hills. The landscape was dusted in a thin but crisp coat of snow, the broad curve of the road beyond like a dark ribbon on a field of white. There was no sign of Devil Strathmore yet, but with the roads coated with snow and ice from the fierce blow last night, she did not expect him until tomorrow at the earliest.
She closed the front door and went back to the parlor, where Margaret had just brought in the tea tray.
Taking her seat across from her employer, Lizzie smoothed her beige muslin skirts and avoided the dowager’s expectant stare.
“Well?” Lady Strathmore toyed with the long strand of jet beads that hung around her neck and eyed Lizzie in knowing amusement. “What say you, gel? He is very gallant.”
Lizzie shrugged, said nothing, and nodded Margaret’s dismissal. The chambermaid scurried out.
“Oh, come, Lizzie, he is a poppet,” the dowager scolded with barely suppressed mirth. “You do not like him?”
“To be sure, he is an excellent doctor, amiable, competent, and kind.” She focused her attention on the task of pouring out. “Beyond that, I have no thoughts of him whatever.”
“La, the poor boy will be crushed! I daresay he comes here to see you more than me, for I have very little use for his services.”
“Ma’am, really. Dr. Bell’s sole interest lies in your good health, as you well know.”
“Oh?” The viscountess shot her an arch look from across her teacup. “He asked me in confidence if I thought you might be amenable to a drive in his new barouche.”
“He what? Good Lord!” Lizzie set the teapot down in astonished indignation. “Can’t the man see that I am on the shelf?”
“Stuff and nonsense, Miss Carlisle. You’re barely twenty.”
“I’ll be twenty-two this autumn,” she said hotly.
“Tut, tut, the only person who decides when a woman is on the shelf is the woman elle-même.”
“Well, if I choose to put myself on the shelf, that is my own affair, surely,” she huffed, much to the dowager’s amusement.
“But why, in heaven’s name, when there are respectable young gentlemen of pleasing countenance and promising expectations eager to pay suit, despite your efforts to put them off? Ungrateful gel, I daresay you want for a proper feminine vanity.”
“What I lack in vanity, ma’am, I hope to make up for in sense. My passion is for books, not a pair of handsome eyes or a well-turned calf.”
“Extraordinary. Do you claim to be immune to the attentions of a charming young man? Even I am not. Never was.”
“A man is a creature who will say anything to get what he wants,” she replied in a blithely philosophic tone, mollified by her own certainty on this point. She shook out her napkin and laid it on her lap.
“Even the saintly young Bell, trotting from house to house, mending his neighbor’s ills of body and mind?”
“New carriage, did he say? Impressive how profitable such altruism can be.”
“Touché, my dear, touché.” Lady Strathmore chuckled, sipping her tea. “Still, you might at least try getting to know him better.”
“I might also try whale hunting, bullfighting, or getting lost in the Sahara atop a camel. Oh, yes, that would be a grand adventure….”
Her employer was laughing. “Then you’d be like Dev.”
“Mmm.” Lizzie hid her thorough skepticism about Lord Strathmore’s supposed exploits, which she considered highly exaggerated at best.
Any man who had seen and done so many incredible things would surely not be wasting his time living like a dissipated rake in London, as Lord Strathmore had been doing since his return to England some months ago. She knew his type—hedonistic, immature. But she supposed a man like that had to seek his thrills somehow.
“Well?” Lady Strathmore prodded.
Lizzie gave her a wry smile. “If I were to let the oh-so-wonderful Dr. Bell court me, sooner or later, I would notice something base and inevitably low in his male nature, and then I would kick myself for wasting my time with him when I could have been here with you, keeping you out of mischief—or trying to.”
“But you must be practical, my dear. The abundant faults of the male species aside, you must have a husband, children to look after you in your old age. You don’t want to end up like me.”
“For shame, ma’am, I should be very happy to be like you in any respect, and rest assured, I am not at all concerned for my old age. As it happens, I have already made provisions to support myself when I am a spinster lady of advanced years.”
“How shockingly independent.”
“Thank you,” she replied with a firm nod, though she gathered it wasn’t a compliment. “I shall open a bookshop in Russell Square—I’m sure I’ve told you all this before.”
“Bookshop!” the dowager snorted. “A young woman of your caliber has a duty to concern herself with the multiplication of the species, Miss Carlisle. Really,” she continued as Lizzie blinked at the rare compliment from the old dragon, “I have never in all my days heard a woman speak so cheerfully about spinsterhood. It’s altogether morbid.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lizzie answered with caution. “I rather like it on the shelf, safely out of harm’s way—where certain ‘cats’ of my acquaintance cannot knock one down and shatter one into a hundred bits, like your poor vase.”
Lady Strathmore leaned nearer, sliding her a mischievous smile. “But on the shelf, my dear, all you get is dusty.”
Lizzie burst out laughing and shook her head at the incorrigible old woman. Nevertheless, she was eager for a change of subject rather than her nonexistent love life. She turned to show Lady Strathmore the progress she had made on repairing her treasured vase, when suddenly a high-pitched shriek pierced the air from somewhere near the entrance hall.
“Good heavens, what now?” her employer exclaimed.
Lizzie was already on her feet, rushing to see what was the matter. She was halfway across the room when Margaret burst into the doorway with a look of wild excitement.
“Oh, mila
dy, it’s Master Dev! He’s come! He’s riding up the drive!”
“Devlin?” the old woman breathed, her face lighting up with instantaneous joy.
“Aye, ma’am!” Margaret cried, her eyes sparkling. “He’ll be here in a trice!”
“Heaven preserve us!” she whispered. “He’s come!” Radiating shocked amazement and motherly pride, the formidable old dragon did not seem to know what to do with herself all of a sudden. She was breathless, positively fluttering. “Why, that rascal, he gave no warning! Isn’t that just like him? Well, don’t just stand there, daft creature! Run and tell Cook to set another place for supper! My nephew will be hungry—he always is! Lusty appetite, that boy—no doubt it’s why he’s grown into such a fine, strapping figure of a man.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Margaret agreed a bit too eagerly, then dashed out a curtsy and raced off to carry out the divine privilege of feeding Master Dev.
“I don’t trust a man who doesn’t relish a good meal,” Lady Strathmore went on, quickly wiping away a tear that she thought no one saw, but Lizzie barely paid heed.
She stood frozen with astonishment, her mind in a whirl.
Good God, her ruse had worked!
But how? How on earth had he gotten here so fast? He would have had to have traveled all night through the blizzard at breakneck speed—
“Quickly, child, how do I look?” Lady Strathmore demanded. Busily adjusting the lappets of her black lace house cap, her cheeks were flushed with pleasure, her coloring better than Lizzie had seen it in weeks.
It was miraculous.
Darling Dev had not even shown his face yet, but somehow he had the power to revitalize the old woman with an impact that all Lizzie’s patient, cheerful, daily companionship could not begin to approach. And that, she supposed with a lonely pang, was the power of genuine love.
“You look beautiful, ma’am,” she forced out. “As ever.”
“Well, don’t just stand there, Lizzie, go and change that frumpy gown!”
“Ma’am!” she said indignantly.