“You never contact your mother, do you, Harry?” Melody asked uncertainly.
“Oh no, Miss Judith told me I never could, or she’d stop supporting me. I would have to be ’prenticed out then, or sent to the factories or mines. ’Sides, I don’t even know her name. I always figured, though, that if things got really bad around here I’d find out and ask her if she needed a new groom.”
Corey choked on a piece of pie, and Melody decided it was long past time they were all upstairs. They needed baths, and Baby would be up early, and they would have a great deal of work, getting Dower House back in order.
Corey disagreed. “You three heroes shall stay abed till noon if you wish. Mrs. Tolliver can look after Baby until the nursemaid comes, and I shall send the village girls to help your Betsy with the cleanup. Margaret and I shall manage to collect the eggs and feed the chickens without you, and Bates, I am sure, will be happy to assist the twins in feeding the pigs, if Master Harry here leaves them anything to eat.”
“Old fussbudget Bates would never go near the pigs,” Harry jeered.
Pip added, “Or near the twins.”
Corey was pulling back Melody’s chair so she could rise without tripping over the robe. “He gets to choose: the twins or Baby.”
*
Lord Coe was more confused than ever. The woman he found more desirable than any in his life was two doors down from him. She would get out of her bath all rosy and warm—Zeus, he could just visualize her long legs and narrow waist—and she would put on his nightshirt. And her mother, her mother, by Jupiter, was one door down! Nobody’s mistress had a mother! Hell, nobody’s mistress had a houseful of orphans or chickens or pigs. None of which meant a tinker’s damn, because Miss Melody Ashton was, in fact, nobody’s mistress.
Nor was she likely to be in the next few days, with her old Nanny telling her to eat her greens, the village girls having a hundred questions, that impossible mother demanding Melody wipe her brow with lavender water, some brat or other wanting a story. Worse, if Melody Ashton was not to be under his protection, then she was going to need protection from him and his reputation.
Corey was finally forced to the reluctant conclusion that Miss Ashton was not a bit of muslin after all. She was, indeed, a marriageable female, if a gentleman were so inclined, of course. He wasn’t. Therefore, the viscount would not let himself be alone with her, or let his eyes watch her every graceful movement. He did not tease, did not brush against her by accident, he didn’t even insult her once in the next three days.
*
Melody couldn’t understand the viscount’s coolness. He was polite, he was proper, and he could have been a parlor chair for all the affection he showed. After their shared experiences and the understanding she thought she had read in his clear blue eyes, suddenly he was a stranger.
Melody just couldn’t figure it out until Dower House was nearly restored and Corey offered the ladies his coach for a trip to Hazelton to purchase upholstery fabric for new drapes. Mama and Felice were thrilled, especially when the viscount insisted on accompanying them and bespeaking tea at the best inn the town had to offer while Melody and Betsy were placing their order.
The fabric they selected was less dear than Melody had budgeted and temptingly near some lengths of damaged goods the linen-draper was trying to sell cheaply. All those fashionable ladies were coming to the Oaks, and it was Melody’s own money, after all, from the dowry Aunt Judith left for her. She skipped all the rationalization; maybe the viscount would smile at her again if she didn’t look like such a schoolgirl. The purchase was quickly made, a cream-colored silk shot with flecks of gold and green with only small water spots on one edge.
Next, Melody had one more brief errand before joining the others and watching the viscount fawn over Felice. She wanted to stop into St. Sebastian’s, Melody told Betsy, to see where her parents were married. While Betsy had her own notions why her young mistress was interested in churches and weddings, Melody was checking the church registry.
There was the record of her parents’ marriage, and there was the reason for the viscount’s coldness. Melody laughed bitterly, thinking one might say she had been premature in her hopes for the regard of such a proud man. One might also say she had been premature in this marriage, if one were very, very polite.
Love. Marriage. A baby. But not necessarily in that order.
Chapter Twenty
There were good surprises in life and bad surprises. Finding a truly excellent old sherry that Lady Ashton had overlooked was felicitous. Finding that Miss Ashton’s mutt was still prone to accidents in the house was not.
The new governess, Miss Chase, was a decidedly happy surprise for Lord Coe; realizing how much he missed the Ashton ménage when they moved back to Dower House was not. After a timid introduction, the schoolteacher from Bath turned out to be a pleasant, soft-spoken young woman who calmly tempered Felice’s coyness and Lady Ashton’s self-absorption. She and Melody shared a genuine affection, and the children were quickly enfolded in that warmth. From what Lord Coe saw of them, anyway. Now that Dower House was habitable, and Miss Chase had taken over the classroom with more formal notions of schooling, Corey saw very little of the youngsters. Astonishingly, he missed going up to the nursery in the evenings to watch Baby sleep or help read bedtime stories. He missed seeing Philip in the library at all hours or Harry in the stables.
What Corey missed most, of course, was Melody, and that was not a surprise to him at all. In fact, he had missed her before she left. While he was trying to maintain the proper distance, Miss Ashton had added miles. She was cool and aloof, conversing with Miss Chase instead of him whenever possible at meals, busy with the house or the livestock or restoring her papers to order other times. And no, she never needed his help. It was as if she were never home when Corey called, although he could see her, talk to her, almost touch her if he dared let himself, to shake sense into the peagoose. He was the one being careful, being protective. Why was she treating him like he had the pox? Didn’t she know it was the man’s job to back off a relationship grown uncomfortable? No woman had ever turned from Corey Coe, and it was a shock to find how lowering the experience was.
Even Bates noted his master was unusually blue-deviled and attributed the viscount’s moods and megrims to postbattle fatigue, after the infantry’s retreat. That would soon change, of course, with the arrival of real houseguests. Neither Bates nor Coe’s London butler considered the Ashtons or the nursery party to be worthy company, although Bates had been caught out teaching Pip the proper way to knot his tie, and the starchy butler’s white gloves were often sticky.
Corey decided he hated surprises. The incompetents in the Peninsular Campaign were always planning grand surprises for the Corsicans, and Lord Coe still carried the scars. When he was four his father had promised him a special birthday gift, then handed him baby Erica instead of a pony. Now that very same sister, the one for whose sake he’d gotten into this mess in the first place, wrote that she would have a surprise for him sometime after her arrival. Corey should set aside another bedchamber. If Erica thought to lecture him on his duties and then parade another empty-headed chit in front of him like a filly at auction, she was in for a surprise herself: she could very well share her room with the wench. He wouldn’t. Damn and blast, Erica was supposed to come, select one of the gentlemen, and be happy ever after. Corey did not want any surprises.
Now even Lady Ashton was plotting some disaster in the guise of a treat. She had come to the library earlier, interrupting him in some notes he was making for his steward in Kent, begging another bedchamber for yet another uninvited houseguest.
“Not that Barty’s not invited, oh no. I have asked him to come many a time,” Lady Ashton gushed over the sherry Corey was forced to offer. “He’s been gone so long, you know, and now his ship will dock any day. The letter must have gone astray, for I wrote him of our little difficulties some time ago, but you cannot care about that. It’s just that I cannot see him s
taying at Dower House. Not that I would mind having a man around the house, what with fires and people breaking in. But it’s the proprieties, you know.”
She tittered like a debutante, making Corey wonder what kind of queer nabs this Sir Bostwick Bartleby was, not to be trusted in the house where his own daughter lived, with Lady Ashton and Nanny. He knew there was some irregularity about Felice’s birth, that the chit had never been presented in London, but he never cared to nose about for all the details. If the old roué approached Melody…
Lord Coe’s face must have given away his thoughts, for Lady Ashton hurried on: “Oh, you mustn’t think the worst of Barty. He’s as sweet as a lamb.”
A lamb that would be the black sheep in a family of cutpurses, likely, Corey thought, twirling his pencil. Lady Ashton changed tack. “The Dower House is so small, you know, especially now with that Miss Chase among us, and the infant and its nurse….”
Weren’t the governess and the servants safe from the man? Corey would be damned if he wanted the bounder around his sister.
“…And right now dear Felice is the tiniest bit put out with her dear papa. As much as I hate to say it, I think we might all be more comfortable if you could see your way to giving him room here.”
“Wasn’t he supposed to be coming to take Felice to India with him? I would have thought she’d be happy.”
Lady Ashton emptied another glass and fluttered her kerchief. “There’s the rub. Dear Barty wrote that he wants to settle down here in England. A new beginning, a new family…”
A young wife. Corey got the picture and knew what it meant to Felice’s future, and Melody’s. The pencil snapped in his fingers. “I could see where Miss Bartleby might be downcast, but won’t the nabob, ah, Sir Bartleby make provision for her?”
“He won’t countenance her going to London until he has a respectable wife, he writes. The old scandals, don’t you know. And he did mention how he thought she must have been a trifle extravagant recently, the naughty puss. I’m sure he’ll come around, you know, if only…”
If only he is not subjected to a spoiled brat’s tantrums, Corey concluded. He could well visualize life with a disgruntled prima donna like Felice, and he almost pitied the man.
Then Lady Ashton spoke the fatal words: “And if everything works out, I think we may have a happy surprise for you. Melody won’t have to worry about this old house anymore, or all those children. We’ll all go to London.”
So this selfish, silk-clad sot was promoting the match, was she, to feather her own nest? Corey would give the old rakehell house space, all right. He’d keep him so far from Melody the dastard wouldn’t recognize her if he passed her on the street!
*
There are certain surprises that are known as ambushes. A weathered soldier learns to anticipate them, and a determined bachelor, hardened after a few Seasons on the town, knows the forewarning signs.
When no one was supposed to be in a bachelor’s rooms, yet by odd scents and little rustlings someone unmistakably was, that spelled trouble. When the bed-curtains on the big four-poster were pulled shut in the daytime, only disaster for the unwary could lie within, the type of catastrophe that usually ended in screams, tears, hysterical mothers, and weddings.
Corey stayed in the doorway, mentally calculating the odds of this being another housebreaker. Nil. “Oh drat,” he exclaimed loudly, “I forgot my book.” He noisily walked down the hall, hiding behind a chest of drawers on the other side of the stair landing. Nothing happened, and the viscount was going to feel like a perfect fool if one of the maids found him skulking behind the furniture. He walked just as noisily back to his room. If the occupant of his bed was one of those same village girls hoping for a promotion, he could send her off with a smile and a smack to her bottom. But what if the intruder were, say, Felice, feeling ill-used and cast off by her father, who saw a way to guarantee her own future? Ambitious and spiteful, Felice could never stand to see Melody take precedence. In one underhanded masterstroke, the golden diamond could capture herself a fortune, a husband, entry to London’s most select doors, and a title, if Corey Coe were fool enough to get caught.
Zeus, what a hobble. He didn’t want to embarrass the chit by calling for Bates or put off the inevitable by leaving, so he stood where he was and called, “If you are not out of there by the count of ten I shall fetch the housekeeper.”
Nothing but sniffles came back to him. Hell and damnation, he thought, tears! Corey strode over to the bed, threw back the drapes, and started to bellow, “Get out of there this instant,” when he realized nobody was in the bed at all. “What in blazes?” Then two small, dirty, tear-streaked faces poked out from under the bed, and a little voice whimpered, “We’re sorry, Lord Corey.”
And another finished. “We didn’t know it was your room.”
Now Corey truly felt like a jackass, suspecting threats to his freedom the way a middle-aged spinster saw ravishers behind every bush. The only real menace he saw was explaining to Bates how there came to be so many dirty footprints on the bedcovers, as he gathered the twins close to him, propped up by the pillows.
“I am sorry I yelled at you, moppets. Now what is the problem? Running away from Miss Chase, is it? I thought you liked her.”
“It’s not Miss Chase,” one twin started.
“It’s Miss Mel,” the other ended. “She wants to send the pigs off to market.”
“To be killed.”
By George, Corey was in trouble now. He took a deep breath. “But, sweethearts, you knew the pigs had to be…sold. Pigs go to market, that’s what they do, the same as little girls go to classes.”
“But some pigs are too special.”
“And should be kept home, with their friends.”
Corey squeezed the girls closer. “Let me see, you don’t want to keep all of the pigs, just a special—how many?” Each twin held up one finger. “Two. That doesn’t seem too unreasonable. What does Miss Melody say?”
“She says we haven’t enough money to keep any.”
“Except the mama pigs, who will have more babies.”
“But it won’t be the same.”
Tears started to fall again, and Corey had to shift to find his handkerchief to blow noses. “But what can I do? Miss Ashton hardly ever listens to me, you know, and I think she would take it amiss if I told her not to get rid of the very favorite pigs. It’s her business, after all. And I know she won’t let me pay for their keep as I do for Baby.”
Four big brown eyes looked up at him. His collar was tight. “I, ah, suppose I might tell her I need some special pigs for my country property. I could purchase the pigs from her, and then, ah, ask her to keep them awhile till they get bigger. Of course, I would have to rent some land back from her to keep them and pay for their food. Do you think she would swallow that?”
The viscount was nearly smothered in pinafores and petticoats. “I only said I would try, brats! But hold there, I want something back from you two hellions.” Corey got up and went to his dresser. He fumbled in the carved wooden box that held his rings and fobs and came back with two pearl stick pins, a black pearl and a white pearl. “What I want is a promise that you’ll wear these for me, and mind you each only wear the right one. No one else has to know which is which, except us, if we are to be partners in this pig business. Agreed?”
The twins exchanged looks. “But Nanny won’t like it.”
“Us taking more presents from you.”
“You just ask Nanny to tell you about casting pearls before swine, for you are my pearls beyond price. Now, how about if Dora has the dark, so I can remember that way? Laura will have the light.” He pinned them on and kissed each forehead. “Now, let’s go see if we can convince Miss Ashton.”
“But what about the pigs, Lord Corey?” they chorused.
“The pigs? You mean the pigs are here, under my bed?” Two nods, two gamin grins. “Why, you little hellborn babes, I have a good mind to teach you some manners!” He picked up one of the
pillows from his bed and started chasing the nearest giggling, squealing little girl, then the other. When Bates and the footmen came with milord’s bath some few minutes later, they were still at it, with flying ribbons and braids and feathers all over, and piglets rooting in the middle of the viscount’s bed. Bates fainted.
*
The twins were so happy, Melody did not have the heart to deny them. “But there is no question of your paying for the pigs, my lord,” she told Corey when the girls went to put their pets in the pen.
“No, there is not,” he agreed, flicking a stray feather off his sleeve. “And I expect you to charge at the same exorbitant rate you got for the house.”
“My lord, I do not put a price tag on everything.”
“No? That’s not the impression I got from talking to your mother. Rich old men, houses in London. If that’s not mercenary, I don’t know what is.”
“And I do not know what you are talking about, Lord Coe. I think some of those feathers must have addled your brain. And I shall not let you buy those pigs.”
“Miss Ashton, you are the most exasperating female I know. You’d rather starve than take my money, for which, incidentally, I made a deal with the twins so cannot renege, yet you would sell your very soul for pinchbeck security. Don’t do it, Angel.”
Then, instead of hurling missiles or insults, Melody did a very surprising, uncharacteristic thing: she burst out crying and rushed up the stairs where Corey could not follow.
Lord Coe really, really hated surprises.
Chapter Twenty-One
It was a house party from hell.
The first guests to arrive were Marquise and Lady Cheyne. Lady Cheyne took one look at Baby, being walked in a pram by the nursemaid, and decided Baby would make an admirable addition to the cricket team she was building. Lord Cheyne adamantly refused, declaring that their hopeful brood was large enough as is, and he had been considering his friend Corey’s invite as a second honeymoon. The happy couple retired to their suite to discuss it and were not seen again for days except for meals, although loud noises could be heard now and again coming from their rooms.
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