Her Beguiling Butler

by Cerise DeLand

  The others considered Finnley with quiet admiration.

  Minutes later, both the cook and the scullery maid were escorted out the back door by Grimes and Gaylord.

  An air of unease hung in the kitchen as the remaining staff murmured of their need to depart for their duties.

  And Alicia and Finnley were left to stare at each other.

  With her hands folded in her lap, she appeared limp, unable to do anything but stare at him.

  He exhaled and searched for ways to soften the blow of his revelation. “I know this is a shock to learn that I am—“

  “A lord? No. With the Home Office? I suppose not.”

  “I am hired on occasions. In this case, many people had more questions than answers. When your butler Norden died, the surgeon who came in attendance that day thought something was amiss here. The way Norden landed on the stairs on his back rather than on his face meant he’d fallen backwards. His death on top of your husband’s was odd. Especially since your husband had no maladies and the apothecary in Oxford Street claimed your husband acted oddly when he came to ask for headache powder. He thought he was deranged.”

  “Lord Ranford was a healthy man, it’s true. And he was a cruel man in word and, to some, in deed as well. I am sorry he died the way he did.” Alicia was not a vindictive woman and so her statement endeared her more to him. “So tell me, sir, are you packed to leave me?”

  That brought him up short. His two bags were stuffed with his meager belongings. Loathe to leave her as he was, he still had one more thing to do. “I am ready, yes. However, I would like to return as the man I truly am.”

  “You had that opportunity and failed to take it.”

  “I am free of my responsibilities now that these murders are solved. This afternoon, I will resign in service to the Home Office.”

  “How wonderful for you,” she said and stood. Her gaze lifted to the top of his head and drifted slowly down over his forehead, eyes, nose and mouth, to his chest and arms, fingers, legs and feet. “Do leave the keys to the house on the kitchen table. Thank you for your help with my staff.”

  Despair had him grinding his teeth. “Alicia, I would like to tell you who I am and begin anew.”

  “I do not wish it. I had a man who hid much of his activities. I wish for no other.” She stared at him as if he were a stranger. “Goodbye to you. Do excuse me. I have much to do to leave here and prepare myself and my staff for a new house and a new life.”

  That was now his rival. Her new house, her greater wealth and her independent life.

  The questions before him were could he offer her anything more appealing, and would she ever forgive him?

  Chapter Fifteen

  Six weeks later, Wallace Finnley Demerest walked into the shop of Lock’s hatters at Number Six St. James’s Street, with the intention to buy anything they might have in stock that fit him. For his assault on the ton, he needed a gentleman’s wardrobe from socks to hats. He’d spent a fortune earlier this morning ordering new breeches, satin waistcoats, wool coats and two black greatcoats, Hessian boots and French silk socks. Christ, dressing like a dandy was not only time-consuming but damned expensive. After two hours, he told himself he’d bring a flask of good red wine should he ever again have to endure endless fittings.

  He had business to be done, not the least of which was to choose an architect, plasterers and bricklayers. He had to hurry too if he was to have any improvements to his country house by June. The weather continued to be so stormy and chilly that workmen could not agree on doing any construction. On the spur of the moment, he’d visited his man of business this morning and been shocked to learn that the fellow had taken to his bed, so said his wife, with a case of apoplexy. The cause was that he’d seen the recent bills and gasped.

  “The Viscount Beaumont does not spend a guinea on his house let alone this many thousands,” he’d told his wife and she’d repeated it to Finn.

  But Mr. Jermyn would recover. He had to. The man had not yet seen the biggest set of bills for new flooring and mahogany panels for his own new library and study. Then after that there would be brocades and silks, velvets and whatever else a woman chose to make a hulk a home.

  “Finn! Good to see you!” A tall blond gentleman with a scar along his left cheek approached him with a smile. “Wait, wait. I should call you Beaumont. Pardon me.”

  “No matter. I am barely used to the new title myself. Cartwell, my god, is it you?” Finn clasped the man’s hand in greeting. He had always enjoyed the earl’s company though his taste for gambling and women did not please Finn. Still, he and Cartwell had served at Waterloo together, though Cartwell had been on Wellington’s staff while Finn had taken his old post in the field with his regiment. After the wars, Cartwell had remained in Paris and later had gone to Vienna to work on the peace treaty. “I wondered how you were. Heard you had retired to the country after the Congress.”

  “Working with Castlereagh and the French Bourbons can take the starch out of you,” the man admitted with feigned horror. “I did retire to my home in Cornwall, but boredom descended. I returned, took up my usual pastimes. I understand you have opened your house here.”

  “I have though I doubt I’ll remain in London. I am renovating the family pile in Kent.” And ‘pile’ was the appropriate word for the skeleton of the manse that had become his major interest.

  “Had a fire, didn’t you tell me once when we were in Belgium?”

  “You have a good memory,” Finn said. “Yes, my father lit a taper one evening during an argument with my mother and the place crackled like Chinese fireworks.”

  “I thought you said you’d never return.”

  No clerk or other patrons were in the showroom to overhear so Finn could reply easily. “I did say that. I have a new reason to try to resurrect the beauty of it.”

  “A woman?”

  Finn grinned. “Astute of you. Might I ask if you have similar challenges?”

  “Yes. But not what you might think.”

  “Oh?” Finn remembered that Cartwell was quite a few years older than he and before Waterloo, the man’s father had encouraged him to marry. “How so?”

  “Mine is eight years old.”

  “Your daughter?”

  “A ward. My cousin’s child. A girl. A hellion to be exact. And I must find a governess soon or jump from my roof.”

  Finn chuckled. “I wish I had a reference for you. Alas, none.”

  “You have not married?” Cartwell asked with the arch of a blond brow.

  “No.”

  “The same for me. Although I will tell you, before this child came to me, I thought it time. My father passed away more than two years ago and I must do my duty.”

  “Many mothers this Season will meet that prospect with joy.”

  “I daresay at thirty-six years of age I dislike the prospect of taking a chit half my age to my bed.”

  Finn nodded. “I would not want a child either.”

  “Ah, but I understand there is a comely widow on the market.” Cartwell inched closer.

  If he names—

  “Lady Ranford who is now proclaimed the new Baroness Bentham is said to be a beauty.”

  Hell. “So I hear.”

  Cartwell tipped his chin. “Do I detect that you know her?”

  “I do.”

  Cartwell got a twinkle in his eye. “And you like her.”

  Finn inhaled. Why not admit it? “I do.”

  His friend lifted a hand in a sign of surrender. “I will not crowd the field. March on, my man. Call on me if I may aid you.”

  Finn snorted. “You’d only give me a contest.”

  “Competition spices the game.”

  Finn feigned a scowl. “I’ll tell you if I need your help.”

  “Good. In the meantime, let’s examine the felt, shall we? My favorite hat was crushed yesterday by two tiny stomping feet.”

  “You need that governess t
oday.”

  * * *

  Alicia fingered the roll of pearl pink chiffon silk and recalled how once she might have worn such a delicate fabric to a ball. Now if she donned such a virginal color, the ton would laugh at her silliness. She was not a girl. Not a wife. Not so much a widow, either, since it was May and she was officially out of her mourning for Robert.

  She stared out the front window of Miss Pierpont’s shop. Envy consumed her as she watched a stylish young woman and her mother cross the street, laughing with each other. That kind of enjoyment with her own mother Alicia had missed. The woman had died so young leaving Alicia at age twelve at the mercy of her father who had spent as little time as possible with her. Her aunt Hortense had filled the void as best she could. But somewhere in her life Alicia hoped for deep regard. The pang of remembering Finnley and their moments together was bitter sweet.

  She blinked back hot tears and gazed once more at the silk between her fingers.

  This Season would be a less hectic one for many young ladies entering society. Though the first rush of mourning for the old King George had passed at the end of April, many of the ton still observed a token of grief. Men, the higher their rank, still wore black armbands. Women of similar echelons took off their black attire and donned mauves. Alicia had sequestered herself in her country home these past few months, wearing her old mauves, and living for the first day of June when she could have Preston burn them all.

  “I would buy that, if I were you,” Aunt Hortense said to her as she came to stand beside her at the tables.

  “Don’t you think it might be an attempt at reliving my wasted youth?”

  At her bright sarcasm, her aunt pulled in her chin and scoffed. “I thought you were going to be bold?”

  Alicia chuckled. “I’ll have the seamstress make an entire wardrobe of it in pure white. I’ll wear it in my boudoir. My bath. In my own ballroom.” To dance alone.

  “You can afford it.”

  “With ease,” Alicia said, smiling at the smooth drape of the fabric that felt like a waterfall beneath her fingertips.

  “And you have no husband to naysay you.”

  Alicia gazed overly long into her aunt’s eyes. “Nor any suitor.”

  “But you can and should acquire one or better, two.”

  “For the fun of it,” she said and recalled for the hundredth time the glimmer in Finnley’s blue eyes when he looked at her sans any clothing at all.

  “The earl of Newport’s country party is the perfect place to re-enter the world.”

  “I’ll take Miss Pierpont’s new wardrobe with me,” Alicia said in the spirit to socialize. “I’ll need the confidence of new clothes. You know I hate large gatherings.”

  “Newport promises to keep this event intimate to accord with our mourning for old George.”

  “How many is that? Ten? Twenty?”

  “His wife has told me we total twelve.”

  Alicia tipped her head to and fro. “I hope to remember all their names. And the right way to address them!”

  Aunt Hortense snorted. “Don’t denigrate your abilities, dearest. You will charm them with one flash of your violet eyes and marvelous figure.”

  “I am eager only to see Newport’s gardens and sample his cook’s creations. Aside from that, I will most likely read in my rooms.”

  “I will drag you out, dear girl. The world anticipates the new Baroness Bentham.”

  “The new baroness.” Alicia held up to her face a swatch of purple sateen and admired her reflection in the full-length cheval mirror. “In all her finery.”

  * * *

  Two weeks later, Alicia and her aunt rode up the circular drive to the Newport country estate outside the town of Dover. Alicia had sent Preston on ahead along with her aunt’s maid. Connor, her coachman, was up in the box of Alicia’s carriage that she’d brought down from London. She hadn’t ordered a newer conveyance. That would have been a frivolous expense, considering she’d decided to save her funds for other more important improvements to the Bentham country house. Still, she had added her new crest to the sides of the coach and had new livery of blue and gold tailored for Connor, as well as Grimes.

  But in her Ranford country house, she had made no improvements, knowing it would go soon to the entailed heir. In Maidstone, she’d visited her new estate of Bentham and found it sadly wanting in comforts. She would have to spend quite a bit of money to improve the walls and floors, to paint and furnish the house that dated from the reign of Charles the Second.

  The new heir to the Ranford estate was a distant cousin of Robert’s and a colonial from New York City. Fortunately for her, he’d taken his time to sail to England, viewing his new title and responsibilities more as a chore than a gift. After he had arrived in London last week, he’d come down to visit with her and found the details of estate management overwhelming. He had even asked her if he might refuse the inheritance of the estate. She’d told him that he couldn’t. One did not refuse a title or an estate, let alone its responsibilities to the land and its tenants. The man had returned to London, flummoxed, and was consulting a solicitor to press his case.

  “I should be home, Aunt. This business with Robert’s heir confounds me.”

  “No matter, dear.” Her aunt patted her hand absently as she looked out the window of the coach. The woman fluttered her hands and suppressed a grin. She’d been like this for weeks, as if she were a ten-year-old about to debut or burst her buttons with some mad caper. “The estate is his problem. We are here to enjoy ourselves.”

  Alicia rolled her eyes. “You mean you hope to influence the Newports to allow dancing.”

  Hortense flicked open her fan and waved it quickly. “A midnight ball, don’t you think? They could open the ballroom doors to the gardens and a lovely breeze blows through. I remember dancing here years ago.”

  Alicia grinned at the wistful look on her aunt’s face. “You can show them how well it is to be done.”

  “For myself, I want to dance with the new heir.”

  Gossip in London, so said her aunt, had it that the Newport’s nephew was at last taking up his duties as the earl’s right hand. “You cast your cap for him?”

  “I understand he is quite handsome. A veteran of Waterloo, no less. Accomplished in some government business which he gives up to work with his uncle. And rich from investments in the trade with the West Indies.”

  “Do I detect you are selling me a bill of goods?”

  Hortense tapped her fan on Alicia’s arm, that silly bubbly air of hers overtaking her. “Of course I am. But then he’ll take a look at you in that rose carriage dress and need no encouragement from me.”

  “I need you not to push me into any man’s arms.”

  “Still smarting over that butler’s departure. I understand, dearest. I do. But he was not worthy of you. No matter who he really was.”

  Alicia had told her aunt the entire story of Finnley’s suspected identity and his subsequent revelation that he was an investigator with the Home Office and Bow Street. It was true that Alicia wondered who he was and why he’d taken on such an occupation. Over the past five months, she had hoped she might see him walk up the path to the front door of her Ranford house. She envisioned him asking to be received, hat in hand, and coming to stand in her parlor, revealing who he truly was.

  She had imagined it so often that she’d actually concocted different ways in which she might receive him.

  He would be apologetic. She would be unforgiving.

  He would be demanding. She would be stoic.

  He would declare who he was. She would listen and show him the door.

  He would offer for her hand. She would ponder if she could trust him.

  He would sweep her into his arms and kiss her. And she would melt and want and question if she were a fool to ask for no more in this world than to become his lover and his wife.

  “Come along,” her aunt said as the coach rolled to a sto
p. “Time for fun.”

  Argh. Alicia girded herself for the five days ahead. If she were ever to recover from the loss of Finnley, she would have to find herself a new and engaging occupation. Social charmer might be one.

  Humpf. She doubted she’d carry off the ruse.

  She knew for certain she would not carry it off when she entered the grand foyer of Newport House and was greeted by the countess of Newport, her husband the earl, and beside him, his nephew.

  The man was devastatingly handsome.

  And she was tongue-tied.

  “May I introduce you to my younger brother’s son, Lady Bentham?”

  The earl rattled on. She did not hear him.

  But recognition washed over her. She was calm. She was rational. She was curious as to who this splendid creature was who bowed and gave no hint that they knew each other intimately.

  She extended her hand and Newport’s heir raised it to his lips so that she stared into the clear blue depths of the man’s eyes. As his supple mouth grazed her skin with homage, she noted the patter of her heart.

  “How do you do, my lord,” she managed.

  With a sultry regard, he gave her a broad smile. “Lady Bentham, I am delighted to meet you.”

  Delighted? Ohh, you planned this, Lord Whateveryournameis.

  Aunt Hortense stood beside her. That lady’s mouth did not fall open. She did not offer a gasp. Curious, Alicia glanced at her and her aunt beamed. Beamed!

  She frowned at her.

  The lady preened. Preened! And when he turned to her, she curtsied to him. She even grinned at him.

  Ohh, her aunt conspired in this?

  Alicia set her teeth.

  She and Aunt Hortense would have a talk. A long one. All that giggly expectation of her aunt’s was because she knew about this meeting! She had helped to plan it. Ohh. She would have things to say to her. Many things. But not now. Now she had to be gracious.

  She bit her lip as she watched this man take her aunt’s hand in welcome.

  They chatted.

  She fumed.

  They were polite.