Now addressing Lady Aster instead of himself, Miss Rochester chatted excitedly in melodious tones, arranging his day—and probably his future. His damned sister-in-law didn’t find it in the least odd that he’d been excluded from the conversation that essentially involved him carrying out their plans. She was indulging every word Miss Rochester spoke, without argument.
He glanced at the siblings. Miss Sylvia appeared pleased simply to follow the conversation. The boy looked bored and discontent.
“Let us inspect the attics, shall we?” Erran asked the lad, with deliberate intent. He watched to see if the ladies took notice. They did not.
Gratified to be acknowledged, Trevor eased from his chair, keeping one eye on his sister as he followed Erran toward the door. Completely focused on their plotting, neither lady paid attention to their departure.
Erran mentally measured the front hall and peered into the foyer’s anteroom on the far side of the wide staircase. He didn’t think it would take more than a general refurbishment to make the front rooms suitable for a marquess who needed to entertain his political allies. He needed to see the area behind the stairs for suitability as Duncan’s private chambers. The stairs were too dangerous for his brother for now.
Trevor led Erran up the dark oak staircase—it should probably be painted to brighten the hallway. On the family floor, the carpeting was threadbare and would need removing. Lady Aster would no doubt be delighted to take charge. Erran followed the boy toward the back of the house, glancing in each room with an open door.
He halted at the sound of a machine whirring behind a closed panel.
It took a moment before Trevor noticed he’d stopped following. The boy looked uneasy at seeing where Erran stood.
“The stairs to the attic are at the far end.” Trevor nodded in the direction he’d been heading.
“I like working with machinery,” Erran said, honestly. If there had been any money in patenting his hay baler, he would have enthusiastically given up law. But he didn’t have the ability to sell his ideas, and instead, indulged his mechanical aptitude with experimenting when he had the chance. “May I see what you’re operating in here?”
He didn’t give the boy time to object but pushed open the door.
The plump African lady who had served their tea earlier sat at a machine that she worked with her foot. She appeared to be pushing pieces of linen beneath a needle that pumped up and down as she pedaled.
At his entrance, she instantly stopped and folded her hands in her lap, so it took him a moment to realize what she’d been doing.
She’d been sewing! With a machine.
“It’s just something Papa put together to help the women make shirts,” Trevor whispered anxiously. “Nana doesn’t like to be disturbed. Please, let us go.”
“If it works, it’s ingenious,” Erran said with genuine admiration, ignoring the boy’s warning. “You could make your fortune selling this to tailors and seamstresses.” He addressed the disapproving older woman waiting for them to depart. “Might I take a look at the machine?”
“It is old,” she said stiffly. “It will soon wear out.”
“Not if the parts can be replaced,” Erran said cheerfully, crouching down to examine the mechanism when the woman pushed her chair away. “He used screws to hold it to the cabinet! Where did he find them? This one should be tightened.”
He produced a knife from his pocket and proceeded to twist the metal head back into place.
***
Once she and the delightful Lady Azenor had worked out the details of how she might keep control of her family’s affairs rather than hand them over to Lord Erran, Celeste realized the men had left the room.
Alarmed, she glanced around. Sylvia reminded them of the attic leak conversation.
“Erran loves fixing things,” Lady Azenor said with a dismissive wave. “Not only does he enjoy fixing legal puzzles and injustices, he mends plumbing and machines. He’ll have repaired the roof and will be looking for more things to do. Shall we see what they have found?”
Celeste was terrified of what he could have found. Since the lady was already rising and heading for the door, she had no choice but to follow. It had been a relief finding that she hadn’t lost her ability to persuade, but just as she’d thought she’d reclaimed her authority, his wretched lordship had stolen it again.
He hadn’t been at all swayed by her voice, drat the man. How would she ever induce him to go along with what she and Lady Azenor had planned?
To her utter horror—but not surprise—they found Lord Erran sprawled beneath her father’s sewing mechanism. His lordship had grease on his linen and a knife in his hand and bits and pieces of everything all over the floor. Nana stoically looked on as Trevor fashioned a circle from wire while his lordship gave instructions.
Celeste remembered her father doing exactly the same, and she fought a wave of nostalgia—and admiration. “Really, my lord, it is not necessary for you to fix everything in our lives.”
He didn’t even bother looking up, although his once-immaculate clothing was now rumpled and dusty. “This is a rare pleasure. Consider it payment for my legal services, such as they are.”
She glanced to Lady Azenor. “Is he quite mad?”
The lady laughed. “Ashford will not let him near the mines or the steamships for fear he will take apart all the equipment and not be able to put it back together again. But Erran has been quite clever in installing gas lighting in my parlor.”
“It would be simpler if I could rip out the walls,” the gentleman said from beneath the table. “I’m thinking that needs to be done here, but there isn’t time for that amount of repair.”
He backed out and took the wire ring from Trevor. Glancing up at Celeste, he actually grinned. The sardonic gentleman with the disapproving glare actually grinned.
“I’ll have this right in a trice. I need better parts, but these will do for now. I can draw up a patent application, but it would be best to keep it to yourself until Trev is old enough to sell the idea to people who can manufacture it.” He slid beneath the table again.
He didn’t mind that they were sewing shirts for strangers? That they were essentially in trade? Celeste bit a fingernail and tried hard to believe that. What was a patent application?
“First, we must retrieve the Rochesters’ plantation and fortune from thieves,” Lady Aster reminded him, tapping his boot with her shoe. “Patents are for those with leisure time. We have developed a strategy, if you’ll come out from there so we might explain it.”
“I’ll go to the city, search for the registered will, take a letter from Ashford to the solicitors demanding that they appear here where they might be interrogated by the marquess’s representatives, including Miss Rochester,” Lord Erran recited. “Child’s play.”
Celeste refrained from rolling her eyes. She had wasted half the morning on charming Lady Azenor into this plan when she could have been sewing pleats, and his arrogant lordship had it all mapped out without her having to say a word. Having her wishes anticipated was most distressing, perplexing, and just a trifle . . . exhilarating.
Behind all that lordly linen, Lord Erran was a scarily dangerous man.
“In return, Miss Rochester has agreed that we might start fixing up the lower floors for Ashford’s use,” Lady Azenor explained with cheer. “The arrangement will be convenient for all of us. We have been quite busy while you’ve been painting yourself black.”
“I have returned the machine to proper working order so Miss Delphinia might work easier,” Lord Erran retorted, sliding back out again and tucking his knife away. “I’ll hire an architect to begin work. I have a good man in mind, one who would delight in having his name known in these parts.”
“He means one of his cousins,” Lady Azenor explained. “Ives’ talents are manifold. They are all dangerously intelligent, practical, and scientific, and there are far too many of them. There is always one with empty pockets who can do what’s needed.”
“As if you don’t already have your cousin ready to putter in the garden,” his lordship retorted, wiping his greasy hands on what had once been a pristine handkerchief. He turned to Celeste. “The lady’s family are a meddling lot. Once you allow them into your life, you will never be left alone. Be certain of what you wish for.”
“I wish beyond all things to have meddling family,” Celeste admitted fervently. “It has been exceedingly difficult these last months of managing on our own in a strange city.”
“The hard part comes when you want one thing and they insist on another,” he warned.
“No, not at all.” Celeste smiled. Lady Azenor had responded to her voice and acknowledged her wishes without a single objection. She was certain the rest of the lady’s family could be as easily manipulated. It was only Jamar who frowned and muttered about curses when she used her charm. Celeste couldn’t see any harm in persuasion when it was her only defense. “I think it only takes a little discussion for all parties to find an amicable middle ground.”
She hoped and prayed the marquess would merely stay long enough to cast his vote and return to the country, leaving them alone with an improved home where she could eventually bring out Sylvia. But the return of some of their rent would ease a few of their money woes.
“You may have to find a middle ground over Lansdowne’s dead body,” Lord Erran reminded them. “I’ll have to find out what that’s about or some of his cohorts are likely to escalate to arson.”
That was not the pleasantry she wished to hear, and Celeste shivered in her shoes. She would not allow her family to go homeless, ever, even if she must use her skill to persuade the earl to leap off a high cliff.
Seven
“I swear to you, your damned tenant is another Malcolm witch,” Erran declared in disgruntlement, putting his boots up on the marquess’s desk and swilling the brandy offered. “I don’t know if it’s wise to put you in the same house with her. She’ll have you voting for women’s emancipation.”
Ashford sipped from his glass and stared—blindly—at the wall above Erran’s head. “Emancipation would not be all bad except for the battle necessary to accomplish it. I’d rather fight a war I can win.”
“That’s not the point!” Erran swished the brandy, searching for more goads. “Miss Rochester is devious, manipulative, and apparently dabbling in trade. We would fare better moving her out of the house entirely, but the women are resisting. They think the house is enchanted or some such rot.”
The marquess snorted. “Lady Aster reads her family’s journals. They’re packed with such idiocy. It gives the women something to talk about. I’m less concerned with the ladies and more concerned with Lansdowne. I was hoping to sway his vote, but if we take the Rochesters under our wing and threaten his income, he’s likely to turn against us. I suppose I’ll have to move in just to keep security on the place.”
Erran slammed his hand down on the desk so Dunc could hear his exasperation—even though his brother was saying exactly what Erran wanted to hear. Manipulating Dunc didn’t set well, but dammit, a brilliant mind shouldn’t be left to rot.
“Fine, then. Have eggs flung at you and the roof fall on your head in the next hard rain.” Erran meant every word he said, knowing his obstinate brother would do exactly the opposite of what he suggested. “The Rochesters will probably burn voodoo charms in the kitchen. Which is another thing . . . I’m not certain we can remove their servants and replace them with ours.”
Ashford’s mouth quirked. “Our what? Non-existent servants? Have Lady Aster magically summon a very large butler and two strong footmen to guard the doors. We’ll sort the rest later.”
“They have no proper chaperone,” Erran argued, keeping his tone dispassionate. He intended to influence his brother, but not with any kind of . . . what? Silver tongues weren’t magic, but what was the difference if he lashed out or twisted words? Either way, he was manipulating Dunc. He needed to examine his morals at a better time. “You’ll ruin their reputations!”
The marquess snorted. “I’ll call them my wards. No one will believe a blind man could compromise two perfectly healthy females accompanied by their brother and Nubian giants.”
Erran sat up, rocking his chair to indicate surprise. “You really mean to go through with this—just move into that aging mausoleum with a flock of lunatics?”
Ashford drew a sour face. “It’s no worse than sitting here moldering. At least there I can rot while talking to men with influence.”
“It’s on your head then,” Erran declared, standing, hiding his triumph. By jingo, he could see where the power of persuasion could go to the head. “I have to head back and start digging through files to see how much Lansdowne’s solicitors have destroyed or if they’ve ignored the courts entirely. I shall be pleased to call on you once you’re installed in London so I may say I told you so.”
“Go to hell,” Ashford answered complacently as Erran opened the door wide enough for him to hear the hinges creak.
The blind marquess had finally agreed to leave the house! Duty accomplished—to his own amazement—Erran took the Iveston stairs to the ground floor two at a time. At the bottom, he found Theo waiting for a report. Erran slapped him on the back. “He’s agreed to move to London, warts and all. Aster just needs to summon a burly butler and two giant footmen.”
Theo snorted. “I could talk to him logically and explain all the reasons he needs to go to town, and he’d throw his snifter at me. You go in and tell him all the reasons he shouldn’t go, and he decides town’s the place to be.”
Erran shrugged uncomfortably and sounded out his theory on his more scientific older brother. “I apparently possess a lawyerly ability to twist phrases to my advantage.”
Theo snorted in disbelief. “Right-o. You were always a silver-tongued little mongrel. How did an uncommunicative scientist like me get stuck in this family?”
That wasn’t what Erran had wanted to hear, but he played it nonchalant. “Luck, pure luck, old boy. Except you’re the madman who married into your wife’s witchy clan. There is no accounting for taste.”
It was the damned witchy family causing his confusion. He ought to quit worrying about Cousin Sylvester, silver tongues, levitating gavels and vases, and go back to what he did best—twisting words. That’s what lawyers did, right?
Erran donned his redingote and hat and pulled on his gloves. “I’ve sent word to Cousin Zack to meet me at the house tomorrow to look at the repairs, so I need to ride back tonight. Do you think Aster can summon servants from nowhere?”
“She has two suitable footmen trained, but she’ll have to raid the staffs of her family to find a butler. She’ll make it happen. She’s quite taken with Miss Rochester and her family.”
So was Erran, but he wouldn’t admit his fascination. Women were fine in bed when one had the wherewithal. He seldom did. And he certainly had no home in which to install a wife. He had a future to build before he could even consider it. He touched the brim of his hat and set out into the dusk.
A good long ride back into the city should shake off his need to see how Miss Rochester spent her evenings.
***
Upon Erran’s return to London, rioters were marching past Westminster, drunkenly smashing windows and stoning carriages. The new police force had been set up only a year ago, with this kind of commotion in mind, but they’d had a rough year and lacked experience. The mob flung stones and curses in the direction of any blue uniform, cursing Robert Peel and rudely calling them bobbies. Erran didn’t blame the force for playing least-in-sight.
Mobs weren’t uncommon, but the direction of the marchers toward the park worried him. Erran urged his horse past the relative quiet of St. James and down the side street.
He could see lights in the upper story of the townhouse, so the Rochesters were home. This back street had little activity except for people avoiding the protestors approaching the square. Recalling how Duncan’s enemies had hid their depredations be
hind rural rioters, Erran stopped at the stable across the mews from their townhouse, boarded his horse, and entered the tavern for ale and gossip. The inhabitants were boisterous and loud but didn’t appear to be violent.
Carrying his tankard to the lane between the tavern and the house, Erran lurked in the doorway, studying pedestrians hurrying through the unlit space. Oddly, lantern light glinted through the gates of the townhouse. What were the Rochesters doing in the yard at this hour?
And then he noted the darker shadow leaning against a building farther down the alley, seemingly appraising the back gate. The noise of the rioters came closer, and the shadow straightened in response, crouching down to pick up objects at his feet. Damn. This was no idle drunk. Erran tensed with anticipation.
At some point, bullies would have to learn that Ives protected their own.
He had grown up in an all-male household that excelled at all manner of creating havoc—it was either that, or regularly beat the stuffing out of each other. He couldn’t punch an entire mob, but he knew how to distract. And his legal training had taught him a great deal about how people reacted to fear.
Besides, thrashing a lackwit was too easy and inspired only retaliation. He’d rather put fear in the lout and any of his companions.
Swinging his tankard erratically, Erran faked a drunken stagger and proceeded toward the shadow. He pretended to stumble and sloshed ale on the spy. “Oops, sorry ol’ chap, tryin’ to steer clear of the lion,” he said in a loud sing-song.
The smaller man shoved him away in disgust. “You’ve wits to let. What lion?”
Erran flashed a white smile and didn’t keep his voice down. He had a suspicion the light in the back yard was there for a reason. He wanted to give them warning. “The lion them furriners keep in the yard. Ain’t you heard it? Sounds like it’d bite a man’s head off.”
“I ain’t heard a thing.” But he inched away from the gate.
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